#the moment his therapist tells him he might be responsible for driving away the people he loves (even if that has a fix and doesnt mean hes

[jellydishes]

Varric sat with his arms crossed across his chest like that would do the slightest thing to protect him from any probing questions Aveline might send his way. The problem was that he found silence uncomfortable, which they were both very well aware of. She just had to wait him out.

That didn't mean he had to make it easy for her.

"This is just going to make one more trip for everyone," he muttered mutinously. He had his feet shoved as far under the dashboard as his comparatively shorter legs could reach, and he shifted them restlessly. "Which probably means somebody will have to drive out there again, in order to bring Ed's motorcycle out to her. That going to be you?"

"No," Aveline said, making a minor adjustment to the steering wheel that kept them driving down the straight, unbroken road. The high beams sliced through the darkness, an extra pair of eyes staring down the path ahead of him and laying it bare.

Varric sighed and slouched back into the worn seat cover that barely resembled whatever Orlesian flower she'd liked at the time. "...What do you want me to say, Aveline?" She made a noncommittal noise, and Varric groaned. "You can't just… expect words to flow out whenever you want! People need something to build off of!"

"Isn't that your job description? I thought you'd published a few things by now," she said in a neutral tone.

Varric started to get defensive, only to slow to a pause. "Have you read them?"

She hummed for a moment before saying, "I did."

"And?"

"And I think your stories struggle with the same things you do," she said. Without taking her eyes off of the road, Aveline reached out and turned on the windshield dehumidifier. Now that they were crossing into an area of different elevation, it was starting to get foggy in areas.

"My editor called them polished and ‘deeply human’ when they read them over for me," he protested automatically, but there wasn't any more heat in it.

Aveline still didn't look at him, but he saw her roll her broad shoulders in a shrug. "They were a good read, for what they were. I don't claim to be any sort of literary critic. But I see what I see."

"Which was?"

Another hum. "Your story about the lover who turned to stone every morning, and the one about the lover who ran to the bottom of the sea to become a merman?"

"Yes?" He asked with a frown. Sometimes getting complete answers out of Aveline took a crowbar and a lot of patience, and right now he didn't have either.

"The story never questioned how their decisions impacted other people," she said.

"Maybe that wasn't part of the stories I wanted to tell."

"Maybe," she said. Before he could respond she finished that thought with, "Stories don't have to be real. But they do have to be honest."

Varric could feel his face work through competing expressions. “All writing is honest, in a way.” It was an automatic answer, no different than what he would've said to a professor, and Aveline snorted as Varric finished, “It betrays the person behind the pen.”

"Think what you want, you always do. Like I said, I'm no literary critic. Maker knows I'm not perfect," she went on, and Varric felt a flash of guilt again that turned into irritation. He was so tired of everyone lecturing him over and over again, almost as tired as he was of how he kept pushing back each and every time. Both were exhausting, but only one of those things made his stomach twist.

"Let's say you were a literary critic. What would you say?"

Aveline finally glanced at him as they rolled up to a stop sign. She watched him as the truck idled, then mercifully looked away as she got it started moving again. "I would ask what your writing betrays about you."

Varric started to answer her with the usual response he’d given in college about ‘nuanced views on classism’ and ‘humanistic approaches’ but he couldn't seem to find it in himself to actually say it. Aveline nodded. "I think you're in what my therapist called the contemplation phase," she said, and Varric found himself looking at her in surprise.

He almost said, 'You see a therapist?' or 'Andraste's ass, of course you do. I'm sorry.' He thought of a letter he'd gotten while he was away that he hadn't opened until it was far too late. It had been Wesley's obituary, and a plain, unadorned invitation to a wake and funeral that had happened the week before. He thought of how he'd never responded and never responded until enough time had gone past that he didn't know how to bridge the gulf of time and guilt he'd created between them, and he looked back out at the road. "Contemplation of what?"

"Changing behavior. Where you know something is wrong. That you aren't being served by old choices anymore, if you ever were. Where you're thinking and weighing the odds and maybe even swearing to do it, but you haven't put your weight behind the decision yet, so it can't truly be called a decision at all."

"What does all of that mean?" He'd started fiddling with a hangnail on one finger, because not moving and not looking at her and barely breathing in the cramped confines of a vehicle were getting unbearable.

"It means that Edyiss or I or anyone else can tell you what we think until we're blue in the face, but it won't matter until you decide for yourself that something is broken and that you're the one who needs to fix it."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience," he said in automatic reflex, then winced and lifted a hand. "I didn't mean that. I don't mean to pry into your life."

"...I am speaking from experience," she said unexpectedly. "My husband died. You know that, same as you've obviously picked up that I'm a year sober. I was about as easy as you to convince that I needed to do something." Varric blinked rapidly out at the mist swirling around their truck, thick as old dreams, as she continued, "If you aren't ready, it isn't going to happen."

“Well, that's encouraging,” Varric muttered. “Hope you like hearing yourself talk, because that's about how likely change is at this point. That old saying about leopards and their spots comes to mind."

Aveline made a noise Varric very definitely did not turn his head to look towards, in order to avoid seeing the expression that went with it.

"...I'm sorry," he said after another few seconds dragged on. He didn't clarify about what, and she didn't ask.

"I know you are. Being sorry is easy. Takes no effort at all. I know that, too."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"What you always do, right up until you drag yourself out of old habits and do something hard," she told him as she turned into the road his parents' house sat on. Then, she said something strange. "You can do it."

Varric could only stare at her as they pulled up against the curb. "How do you know?" He almost stuttered, at first, and had to force his voice steady. "Maybe I'm not. Maybe everyone has been right about me all along." He didn't clarify who 'everyone' was, but he imagined he didn't need to.

"You've already shown you can shake yourself out of uncomfortable things that have grown comfortable," she said. "You've come this far before. You can do it again."

He didn't know what to say, and so he said nothing.

[miekasa]

do you have any cute (or h-word) bf headcanons for the Aot boys mie?

Of course I do, I have an ever-expanding list of headcanons for all of them, from how they react to you sitting in the backseat when they pick you up, down to whether or not they would rip your bandages off after your get a shot (spoiler: Eren, Porco, and Levi fucking would)

EREN sfw

He really likes holding hands, though it’s more of a calming habit for him. Holding hands keeps him grounded, and acts as an anchor for his anxiety; so he’ll grab and/or fidget with yours periodically.

He’ll steal your skincare if he’s over at your place, but honestly he just starts… copying it lmfao. Like, he’ll take notice of your face wash when he’s over he’s like “Oh, this is nice” and then a week later, he buys a bottle for himself. Then he buys your toner, and your moisturizer, and you stay over at his place and gotta do a double take bc he’s got damn near the same of everything at this point.

He doesn’t know if he believes that classical music actually helps him to concentrate, but he does know that he’s grown to like it, so it’s become his studying music of choice. He’s got favorite composers and everything.

He’d be upset if you didn’t steal his hoodies. That’s what they’re there for. He’ll make you steal them if he has to.

He hates standing in line. For anything. If he likes a restaurant that gets super busy at lunch, he’ll order ahead for pickup (and he feels special skipping the line). At amusement parks, he pays for the fast passes. If it’s shopping, then he’d rather just do it online.

On that note, he sucks at returning things that don’t fit/he doesn’t like when he shops online, so he honestly just keeps them, or gives them to his friends—it’s much easier than going through the hassle of printing a return label, according to him.

nsfw

He likes the idea of recording you guys during sex, but he’s honestly a little too nervous to do it—nervous about being recorded himself, and about it potentially getting out somewhere.

Likes it when you look him in the eyes when you cum. In fact, he somewhat demands it.

Similarly, he’s always watching you during sex. Mostly your face, for indications of how he’s making you feel and when you’re close to your orgasm (which is why he’s got a thing for you looking at him).

He used to hate masturbating, until he tried masturbating to the idea of you, and now he fucking loves that. He takes his time with it too—if he’s gonna jack off, he’s gonna make a moment of it: sit on his bed, turn the lights off, make sure he’s all alone and can go for as long as he wants.

Threesomes are fine with him, and he doesn’t even have to be the sole one in charge, depending on who’s joining you.

ARMIN sfw

He air-dries the majority of his clothes because he doesn’t want his sweaters and knitwear to shrink. Also, he likes the smell of his fabric softener permeating the room while the clothes dry.

On a similar note, he’s got sensitive skin—not to the point where a shirt less than 75% cotton irritates him; but he is conscious of fabrics and products he uses. Because of this, he takes extra care with his laundry, his pillowcases and bedsheets are satin as are the majority of his pajama shirts, and he never ever walks around without house slippers or he’ll irritate the bottom of his feet.

He’s scared of bugs, but he doesn’t like to kill them either. Honestly, he just kinda hopes spiders and stuff will crawl away without him intervening 😭😭

He likes board games, and has a thing for The Game of Life. He cannot play chess, even though most people would guess that he could, and he’s begun to practice by playing online versions against computers to learn.

He knows everyone’s gossip because everyone comes to him to gossip. And if he’s the therapist friend, then you’re the person who receives the summary of all the tea from him at the end of the week. And man can this boy throw a bitch fest when he’s in the right mood.

nsfw

He’s got a bit of an oral fixation, so he really likes having your mouth occupied; with his fingers, with your panties, with his dick—he’s not really picky.

Likes sex with the lights on. Claims it’s because he wants to “see all of you” (it’s really because he’s nervous he’ll fuck something up if he can’t see properly 😭😭)

He really likes making out. Like, a lot. Though it’s not something that happens often—so he builds up a lot of frustrating thinking about it, and it all comes crashing down, and ends up with you guys damn near dry humping each other on the couch for two hours.

That’s something that applies to him generally, too—he tends to let himself get very frustrated and worked up, whether he means to or not. He also thinks about sex quite frequently, and it only fuels his frustration; so when he snaps, he snaps hard.

He’d let you choke him back if you asked. Just ask nicely.

JEAN sfw

Loves studying in cafés and adores when you study with him; peeps up at you periodically when you sit across from him. He always pays for your drink, but sometimes you guys share, and he likes making a game out of reaching for the cup at the same time as you.

He’s very chivalrous, but he hates when you call him out for it, or make any kind of deal of it. He knows it’s chivalry, but he also knows it’s the bare minimum, plus he’s easily embarrassed—especially in public.

Loves having his hair played with, absolutely adores it. If you’re just holding his face, or resting your hand on his cheek, he’ll move himself further into your touch to maneuver your palm closer to his hair.

He really really really likes back hugs—giving and receiving them. If he’s standing behind you, he’ll most likely reach for a hug at some point (sometimes he won’t let go and you’ve gotta waddle with him on you). His ears get red when you give him a back hug but he always uses a hand to rest over your arms to tell you that he doesn’t want you to let go.

He can play the piano, but he doesn’t tell a soul about it. The only reason you found out it through his mom. He’s got stage fright, so he gave up on performing, but he’s really talented, and can almost play any song by ear.

nsfw

He loves the feeling of your hands on him, particularly if you’ve got long nails. Please scrape your nails against his back, or even just dig them into his biceps while he’s fucking you, it’ll drive him insane.

Along with liking having his hair played with, he adores having it pulled on—the attention and desperation in your actions goes straight to his ego and his dick.

One of his biggest fantasies is getting a lap dance from you. He’d never ever fucking say it out loud or dream of asking for it, but the idea of you stripping in front of him, down to lingerie he’d picked out for you, and teasing him until he can’t take it anymore and jumps you is something he thinks about… far more often than he should.

If you’re wearing his clothes (especially one of his t-shirts to bed, or around his apartment), he’s gonna fuck you in it. Jean has a lot of self control, but that’s one thing that’ll make him snap in an instant. And if you wear his shirt or hoodie out, he’s fucking you when you get home, it’s as simple as that.

CONNIE sfw

He studies with children’s shows playing the background. He doesn’t remember how he discovered that his method works for him, all he knows is that something about Paw Patrol makes for excellent background noise for writing his research papers.

He’s quite touchy with PDA, but if you guys are in a crowd then forget about it—because Connie might forget about you. He’s definitely left you at the grocery store before.

He eats cereal for breakfast every morning, and he’s kind of got a collection of them in his kitchen. He claims there are upscale cereals that he doesn’t just let anybody eat or even touch; so, if he offers you a midnight snack consisting of a bowl of his favorite (and very rare) cereal, then be honored.

He almost always pays with cash, but he hates change. If he gets back coins, he either tells the cashier to keep them, puts them in a tip jar if there’s one in sight, or just pours them into your coat pocket. He understands that its money, but he’ll be damned if he’s just got a sack full of nickels clanging around in his bag.

nsfw

He claims he doesn’t have a thing for exhibitionism, but with the way he’s down to fuck damn near anywhere, he might be a bold faced liar. Changing rooms, music festivals, airport bathrooms, the little corner of the multilevel parking lot that he’s oh-so-certain is in the blindspot of the security cameras... there are so few things off-limits with him.

Car sex on his bucket list… just not in his car lmfao (because trust and believe that’s something that already happens pretty regularly). Maybe his real kink is vandalism and destruction of property.

He is not above begging you to sit on his face. He will get on his knees and pant like a fucking dog for you to do it, he’s so serious. He’ll do it laying down, he’ll do it with you standing up/against a wall, he’ll do it on the couch. Break his neck please he’s fucking asking for it.

He doesn’t mind sharing and he definitely doesn’t mind watching. Honestly, he’d egg you on to kiss someone else at a party, or go as far as to seduce you into seducing someone else just so he can watch it go down.

PORCO sfw

He sends you iMessage games but only the ones he’s good at because he doesn’t like to lose. But also, if he is losing, he doesn’t want you to be supportive about it and tell him “it’s okay uwu” lmfao he wants to either cream you, or have you kick his ass; competition is the name of the game, don’t be soft on him.

He’s a morning person, and he likes going on runs or even just early-morning walks when the weather is nice. He will wake you up occasionally to join him—and if you’re a homebody, you will be joining him. He won’t be responsible for watching you decompose on the couch.

Very picky about his pizza. It’s not a calorie or grease or health thing—he just really fucking likes pizza, and he won’t excuse a bad slice.

Always pulls you closer to him in a crowd or when a group of people are walking by. He doesn’t have to, but he likes to. Tease him about it and he’ll push you right back tho, probably into a shrub if there’s one near by.

nsfw

He’s such a “No, no—answer the call” kind of mf; a sadist, if you will. He lives for torturing and embarrassing you, and that applies to sex, too.

Loves the way his hands look on you, particularly splaying his hand over your stomach when he’s fucking you. Likes the heat of your body against his, when he positions himself just right to feel the outline of his dick against you, and squeezing the sides of your tummy when he gets lost in it.

Loves blowjobs, and loves to cum on you or over your face. His favorite thing tho is pulling away just before he’s about to orgasm, and jacking himself off with your tongue sticking out, ready to swallow.

Okay with threesomes, too; but he wouldn’t like to do much to or with the third person. It’s okay if they touch you—maybe even fuck you, depending on who it is—but he’s not there to get them off.

LEVI

sfw

When he cooks dinner, he always makes sure to make enough for you to have leftovers to take with you for lunch the following day. Especially if it’s a dish you’ve been wanting or try, or specifically asked him to cook.

He’s got a specific tote bag he brings with him to the grocery store/farmer’s market, and separate one for when he’s running other light errands.

He hates soda, not even just because it’s not the healthiest thing to drink—he just doesn’t like the feel of carbonated drinks; the only exception being when they’re mixed with liquor, but even then, it’s not his preference.

After a while, he just starts lying and says you’re married at places where it benefits you both, or to curb a longer conversation about the status of your relationship to people who are inquiring. He thinks it’s fucking weird that marriage is what shuts people up, but if it works, it works; less people prying in your guys’ business.

He likes giving you forehead kisses, and if you do it back, he’ll learn that he doesn’t mind receiving them either.

He’s such a sucker for you rubbing your thumb against the back of his hand when you guys hold hands. He might not act like he notices, but he always does; and somewhat craves little touches like that the longer you guys are together.

nsfw

He would never admit it to anyone, but birthday sex is up there for his favorite kind of sex. He never cared much about his birthday… until he realized he could get that as a gift. He knows it’s not different, but he likes it, nonetheless; one the few times he doesn’t mind having all the attention on him.

King of aftercare, though some of his methods usually lead to another round—in which he teases you for cancelling out his work, when you know he was just as willing and eager.

He likes edging himself and overstimulating you; and with his self-control, that makes for a pretty dangerous combination.

He’s strong and he knows how to use it to his advantage: maneuvering you with a single arm, holding both your wrists above your head with one hand, pushing your head down into the sheets when he’s fucking you from behind.

Sex is one of the few times Levi doesn’t mind making a mess—and in fact, he likes it messy; watching you drip onto the sheets, making you spit on his dick and fucking your face until you drool. He always goes on about how sloppy you are, how you can’t keep anything clean, but he fucking loves it.

[codename-adler]

foxes + onesies (8/9)

based off of that one post i saw and don’t remember, where people once caught Allison wandering around Fox Tower in a giraffe onesie, and i absolutely melted for her. here is the Foxes’ journey to getting a onesie each!

Aaron

TW: mentions of hospitalization and drugs, implications of abuse, mental illness and murder

Aaron tries very hard

that phrase alone could very well sum up his existence

he tries to be a good student

he tries to be a good backliner

he tries to be a good teammate

he tries to be a good person

he tries to be a go- he tries to be a brother

he tries so, so hard

but life is harder

he’d tried being a good son, and failed

his mother was dead, and died hating him

he’d tried being a good boyfriend, and failed

Katelyn was gone, and left him crying

so Aaron was trying, and now?

he was trying to find himself, to grow, to heal…

which was very, very difficult when in counselling sessions with your just-as-traumatized twin brother

they’d both worked through Andrew and Neil’s non-relationship, and through Aaron and Katelyn’s fallout

Aaron had expected it to be the other way around

turns out that while he thought Katelyn deserved better, she thought he deserved better too

she had her own demons to deal with too, in the end

and so while everyone pretty much expected Aaron’s demons to be too big for Katelyn, it was hers that had been too much for the both of them

he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t get through to her, couldn’t help her

one fateful night, she had asked him, sobbing and breathless, to make the call

the call to take her away, the call to save her from herself

the paramedics had put her on a gurney, and they had said their goodbyes

I’m sorry Aaron… I’m so sorry, I wanted to be strong for you… I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m so scared… It hurts so much, Aaron… I’m sorry… Please take care of yourself, baby, please… I’m sorry…

she was wheeled away, and hadn’t seen her in a year since

they corresponded, though

4 months into her admission at a private psychiatric hospital, she had sent him a handwritten letter

she had told him about her routine, her new friendships, her therapists…

she’d told him about the work she was doing on herself, about the traumas she had been too ashamed to share with him…

after the fifth or sixth letter, Aaron had started responding

he never told anyone

until this week

he’d lost count of how many letters he’d received from her, and how many he’d sent her back

but this letter…

this one was different

this one broke his heart so much, that he walked out of his dorm, the letter still clutched in one hand, grabbed Andrew on his way out of Fox Tower, and made him drive to Betsy’s office

without a single word

Betsy was surprised, to say the least, to see Aaron entering first, distress in his eyes, and Andrew following close behind, clueless

Aaron handed Betsy the letter, sat down, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, eyes closed

Bee: Correct me if I’m wrong, Aaron, but from what I understand of the situation, you would like to share this with Andrew?

Aaron: And with you. Bee.

Bee: That is very generous of you Aaron. And brave. Would you like me to read the letter out loud?

Aaron nodded, never looking up

My dear Aaron,

What I’m about to tell you in this letter is very different from our usual correspondence. You know I’ve been working on things since the beginning of my hospitalization. Big things. Ugly things. But important things. And you are not a thing, Aaron, but you are important. You were forced to play a role in the mess that was my life, but that role saved me. From myself. You made the tough call, you took it upon yourself to protect me, even if it meant putting me away and losing me. Losing us.

I’m not so good with spoken words, and I feel safe here, in this bubble we’ve created for ourselves. But I would like you to believe me when I say that the words I’m about to tell you, I would repeat them to you outloud for the rest of my life if it could make amends for what I’ve put you through. One word from you and I would come in person to tell you how much I mean them.

I am grateful for you, Aaron Minyard.

I am eternally thankful that you have crossed the path of my life. You have helped me in more ways than you know, in more ways that I could possibly imagine. It’s so important that you know that, Aaron. It’s important to me, because you deserve to know, and you deserve the recognition. Because I know you don’t think much of yourself. Because I know you think this was all your fault. Because I know you, a little bit, at least. You did the best you could with what you had, and it was enough, Aaron. You cared for me when you didn’t have to, when you couldn’t, when you were going through it yourself, and I can’t thank you enough. But I can try. So here it is: Thank you, Aaron. Thank you. For everything. You were amazing.

However, there is another thing I need to say. A harder thing. But I must take responsibility for my actions, for both my sake and yours. You need to know. You need to know.

I am sorry, Aaron. I am sorry that you had to make that call. I am sorry that you had to witness my breakdown. I am sorry that I had to leave like that. I am sorry that I broke your heart. I am sorry for all the pain and hardship I’ve put you through. I am sorry for all the times I’ve lashed out at you, when really I wanted to lash out at my life. I am sorry for all the times I hurt you, when really I wanted to hurt myself. I am sorry that you had to watch me fall like that. I am sorry that you had to pick up the pieces alone, that you had to get back up alone. I am sorry for all the times I’ve said cruel things just to be mean and to hurt you, for all the grief I’ve caused you, all of it. This is my official, explicit, conscious and honest apology to you. I’m apologizing for all the wrongs I’ve done you, because it was my fault and you didn’t deserve any of it. I take full responsibility. And I am not expecting forgiveness in return. This is a no-strings-attached apology. I could apologize to you forever and still not be worthy of your forgiveness. So I won’t be waiting for it. I won’t be begging for it. This is all yours. I’m sorry, Aaron. I need you to know that. Because I know you think you deserve what happened, because I know you think it was all your fault. It wasn’t. It was mine. It is still mine. And know that I am not only apologizing in words. I will try everything in my power to make it up to you. Whatever it takes. I promise you that, Aaron.

Love,

Katelyn

as Betsy folded the letter, Aaron’s tears dripped down on the office carpet

Andrew was silent, eyes fixed on the piece of paper

Betsy waited a few minutes to let everyone soak in the moment

Bee: This is a very beautiful and heartfelt letter, Aaron. From what I understand, you and Katelyn have been writing letters since she “moved”?

Aaron nodded, still silently crying in his hands

Bee: Are your exchanges always like this?

Aaron shook his head

Bee: Okay, I see. Is this the first time a letter from her has made you cry?

another nod from Aaron

Bee: And why do you think that is?

Aaron: I don’t know…

his voice was rough from crying

Bee: Well, I think I might have an inkling, you tell me if it resonates with you. I believe, Aaron, that this is the first time someone has ever formally apologized to you, yeah? You are not someone that has grown up with that kind of care, that kind of responsibility. That kind of praise. I think you know that this is some kind of opportunity for closure, of course, but it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? Someone cares for the wrongs they’ve done, for the hurt they’ve caused you. And you are not used to that. You are not used to being apologized to. You are not used to this type of kindness. Katelyn did not have to apologize and express her gratefulness. You didn’t expect her to. But she did. That means something to you, yeah?

Aaron’s heart broke a little more at that, before mending a little, too

he cried harder

and Andrew was watching all of this from his seat, seemingly unconcerned

he knew this wasn’t necessarily about him, that this was about Katelyn, and Aaron, and about showing Andrew that she didn’t deserve his hatred and his knives

but he did care

after he drove Aaron back to the dorms and told Kevin to watch his brother, he went for a drive

to think

he only came back once he had thought of something to do with Aaron

damn Josten for softening him

he threw Neil and Nicky out of their dorm, and went to retrieve the Stitch onesie from the back of his closet

he looked for the brand tag, looked it up online and made his purchase

he even paid for accelerated shipping

the day his order arrived, he went to the same convenience store where he’d found his precious DVD, and bought a stupid ugly postcard with a lighthouse on it

in a very neat handwriting, Andrew wrote what he had to say

he then went looking for his brother, but he didn’t have to look far

since that session with Bee, where Kevin was, Aaron usually was too

and Kevin was always at the court

but Andrew found them both sitting on the court’s floor, all geared up, yet watching something non Exy-related on Kevin’s phone

weird

that didn’t stop Andrew

he went back to the locker room, refusing to disturb the weird little thing that was going on there

he left the package and the postcard in Aaron’s locker, and left

a few hours later, as Kevin went to shower and Aaron opened his locker, Andrew’s gift was found

the postcard had slipped to the back of the locker, so Aaron retrieved the plastic bag and opened it first

he didn’t understand

it was a big, fluffy thing, bright yellow

what the fuck

it’s Pikachu

it’s a Pikachu onesie

it’s a fucking Pikachu onesie

what the fuck

he hadn’t thought about Pokemons since… well, since Tilda died

he had collected them, the cards, and the figurines

but he’d sold the toys for drug money

and he’d lost all his cards in the… accident

he’d left his three hundred-something card collection in the car, for some reason he couldn’t remember

but the crash had burnt and bloodied them all

when Nicky had adopted the twins, he had bought Aaron some new ones, but it didn’t compare… it couldn’t replace what he had lost

and now he was holding an adult-sized Pikachu one-piece pajama

he still couldn’t wrap his head around it when he found the postcard peeking from the back of his locker

he took it, his hand trembling terribly

he read the back

later, Kevin found Aaron sitting on the bench, still in his Exy uniform, smiling but crying

He’s so fucking stupid, Kevin, look at this shit

Kevin looked, indeed, at this shit

Kevin didn’t understand what he was looking at, but then Aaron handed him the postcard

Aaaron hadn’t told this story to anyone but Kevin, so he understood immediately what it said, and who wrote it

Kevin placed his big hand on the back of Aaron’s neck and squeezed a bit, an offer of comfort

he still didn’t understand what the yellow monstrosity was supposed to be, but he understood what it all meant

Aaron held the card closer to his heart than the onesie

everytime things became hard with Andrew, he wore Pikachu and he looked at the postcard

he focused on the little lighthouse, on the small, precise letters, on the ink of the pen

he focused on the words

Sorry I trashed your Pokemon cards

[taeyohonic]

stolen dances | chap. V

summary: sometimes supporting the person you love is the hardest challenge you’ll ever face.

pairing: jeon jungkook x fem!reader

rating: m

warning: one/two swear words

additional tags: f2l, ceo!jungkook, bestfriend!jungkook, shrink!yoongi, my best friend’s wedding meets 27 dresses (if the boss/secretary couple had happened), angst-y

words: 1500

links: prev. | next

note: lower case letters intended

chapter summary: a muffin never tasted so bittersweet

can you believe it’s been three years? i miss you army

you can’t help the bittersweet memories flooding your mind at jungkook’s tweet. it’s been such a long time since bangtan stood in front of their fans – performing their music to the people who adored them with all their hearts.

you, yourself, were part of this crowd, more times than your bank account wishes to remember. their stage presence was so enticing, so alluring, you could not not fall in love with them.

jungkook shared some pictures in his tweet, old photos of jin and him demolishing a plate of deep-dish pizza in chicago, of jimin and taehyung posing in front of their pop up store in seoul, and one with all four of them bowing to the crowd in tokyo dome.

there is a smile on your face – not because you think about their shared journey, but because your best friend chose photos of events that you attended. sure, you hadn’t known them back then. but it can’t be a coincident that you have similar pictures – granted from another perspective – on your own camera roll. it makes you miss him.

“what’s going on?”, yoongi asks as he slides your coffee across the table. your starbucks is full of people, but namjoon, yoongi’s dear friend, works here. so, there is always a spot cleared for you. you don’t mind the special treatment as you sip your white mocca.

“just thinking”, you mumble, warmed by the caffeine.

“that can’t be good”, he says and sips his iced americano. he looks as tired as you feel. yoongi is recording his second mixtape right now. so, after he finishes his work talking to people about their problems, he starts rewriting, taping, recording, mixing and editing. no wonder he looks like death.

“i have you know that i’m actually thinking 67 percent of the day.”

“that can’t be good as well, ______. please use your brain more often – it might evolve with training.”

you gap at his audacity. “you do know i’m not paying you to talk me down, right?”

yoongi’s eyes smile while his lips are still half asleep. “you’re not paying me right now, _____. we are just friends meeting up for coffee before we have to… be a part of the working class.”

“i still can’t believe i get to see beautiful, brilliant, boisterous butterflies”, you say. your friend answers with an unattractive snort as his hands move into his thick, bleached hair.

“and i can’t believe you’re getting paid to watch bonkers, brackish, boring butterflies.”

you look away as you see his biceps flex. when did get this muscular? it takes a second for you to register his insult. maybe you need another coffee before leaving.

“i do have to care about my class as well, yoongi. it’s not all sunshine and butterflies. it’s also children’s snot and education.” still, you’re not making eye contact. if this was a therapy session, he’d ask for you to look at him, to ask why you’re feeling uncomfortable. but here, you are… just his friend.

“your work is important, _____, i know”, yoongi answers honestly. he knows how much you love these animals and children. and it is a big deal that seoul’s butterfly exhibition opens up just for your excursion. it makes him happy to see you this excited.

“and because i know that, i’ll remind you that you had to leave three minutes ago.” what? your eyes rush to your watch, only to widen in surprise.

“damn it, namjoon”, you mutter. your barista friend did take a long time with your order.

“don’t blame joon, _____. we were the ones who missed the train”, your friend reminds you as you put on your jacket in a rush.

“less correcting me, more helping me, yoongi”, you shush at him and make a motion to your heavy bag right next to his chair. “come on.”

yoongi doesn’t know why he agreed to help you carry all the lunch packs to school, he really doesn’t. nevertheless, he gets up and slings the heavy bag onto his shoulder and grabs his half-finished drink.

“let’s go – teacher of the year.”

**

the exhibition is amazing. you feel true bliss walking around the nature themed rooms, all home to one of the most rare, beautiful creatures. the kids hang on their tour guide’s lips as she tells them interesting facts about butterflies.

your phone is a constant companion – the camera roll now filled with funny pictures for the moms and dads to enjoy at the next parent-teacher conference. there are even a few photos of just you with a pink butterfly resting on your shoulder. jisoo, your coworker, is an amateur instagrammer, so the results of her taking your pictures are… really flattering.

now, the kids enjoy their break before you guys leave to drive back to school.

“really, you amaze me, ___”, your coworker says as she sits next to you on the bench – eyes trained on your students chasing around the butterflies.

“why?”, you ask, your attention monopolized by the two boys in a heated exchange over their shared butterfly net.

“getting the exhibition to open up just for our class? after hours? without additional fees?”

you flinch at her words as your heartbeat quickens. “wha- what? jisoo? i-“, you start to stutter, “i thought… you organized that.”

there is a fruit basket waiting on her desk with a thank you note for all her planning. now jisoo, too, looks uncomfortable.

“i didn’t”, she says.

**

it takes you a long time before you reach out. the whole train ride was spent with a pro and contra list on your ipad. then, while you were making yourself a two-person bowl of ramen, you crafted more than one email, only to delete every attempt. you haven’t talked to jungkook for more than five days. that’s the longest period the two of you ever went without seeing each other.

there is still a tightness in your chest when you think about his insult that night on the terrace. at first, you weren’t sure if jungkook realized that he hurt you – admittedly you aren’t the best with communicating your feelings. but your cold responses to his texts the next day must have been enough of a red flag for him to act.

then came the gifts: a triple chocolate muffin, still warm, delivered to your home before you had to leave on monday.

on tuesday, there was a singed copy of the unreleased album from one of your favorite kpop groups.

the next day, there was a poem collection where he scribbled in some commentary. you nearly teared up at that because this used to be your ritual when you first got to know each other: lending books with marked and commented pages for the other to enjoy.

on thursday he was strangely silent – only a single daisy decorated your briefcase.

but now, on friday, he went out of his way to get your class into this exhibition. you don’t even want to think about what that must have cost him.

there is an uneasiness in your fingertips as you dial his number. for one fleeting moment you want to call your therapist instead. but you can’t… because you may have left your whole “cold-shoulder-to-jungkook”-move out of the last session. and you really can’t take yoongi’s probing right now.

he answers after seven rings, breathlessly happy.

“______”

you smile and it’s not uncomfortable.

“jungkook… you didn’t have to”, you greet him and can’t help the endearment in your voice. he picks up on that and chuckles.

“of course, i didn’t… i wanted to.”

“thank you”, you answer, “it was really the highlight of my week.”

you can hear his cockiness at your words. “better than stray kids’ new album?”

“better than your thoughts on contemporary poems”, you counter teasingly. then, there is a beat of silence.

“______”, jungkook begins, “i… i really didn’t want you to think i’m not … or that i wouldn’t… do anything for you. you mean so much to me… it’s a shame i have to prove it to you… it should be… obvious.”

you suck in air as if your life depends on it. his words warm your heart and his awkwardness makes you smile.

“i get that i wasn’t the best of friends… but i’ll improve – trust me!”, jungkook vows with fire in his voice. “the winter collection has been kicking my ass… my family has been nagging about christmas… and the wedding…”

there is a beat of silence you do not dare to interrupt. this is his moment, not your responsibility.

jungkook collects himself fast and continues. “i know how much you’ve done for this wedding, for me… for us… and i want to be more involved… i’ll be by your side for all of next week’s appointments. ms yang already cleared my schedule.”

jungkook wants… to be by your side when you talk to the dj? the cake decorator? when you finalize the seating chart? dear lord.

“let’s spend some quality time together, ____. just you and me… and the wedding.”

you cannot find the right responds as you gap silently into your phone. after a moment, another voice is heard through the speaker.

“ask her if she liked the muffin i baked her.” his fiancée’s words punch you in the gut without ill-intent.

___

hi guys! I hope you are doing well! i had to take my first covid test this week – it was negative but that’s an experience for itself, right? i hope you are healthy and you enjoyed this chapter. i’d really love to hear your thoughts! next up: junkook and the reader tackling some of the wedding preparation… love, dana

taglist: @livewittykid​  @thequeen-kat​ @kagami-s-void​ @goldenclosethobi​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​ @jinsalpaca​ @bishuthot​ @laabellaavitaa21​ @baekstans​  @jalexad​

[oliverwvvd]

the devil in me, part ii

Back to writing these two, inevitably, at long last. This is for the lovely anon who dropped by and mentioned this one, despite it having been years since the last post. This is slightly trigger heavy, so sorry if the triggers contain spoilers, but people's mental health comes first so they can choose whether or not to engage with the content.

This is part of a series. You can find part one here.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: When Marcus wakes again in the endless white of St Mungo's, Oliver is still there, and his wand is still gone. Marcus thinks it's about debts owed, or at least, that's what he's trying to tell himself. Whatever other reasons might keep Oliver Wood at his bedside aren't remotely within a framework he's equipped to handle. [possible triggers: severe PTSD, hospitals, battle situations, Legilimency, implied invasion of the mind, implied intention not to survive]

When he wakes, one needle is back in his arm and Marcus’ first inclination is to be pissed off about it. Of course it is. Being angry is the best alternative, sublimation for all of the other emotions he should be feeling and isn’t. He doesn’t need any St Mungo’s trained therapist to tell him about that, mainly because it’s deliberate on his part.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters. “I don’t want painkiller withdrawal on top of everything else. The dosage has to be sky-high for me not to be feeling anything.”

“So you’d rather have the searing amount of pain that makes you pass out within minutes instead? You’re right; being a masochist is a much better idea.”

He closes his eyes. “Why are you still here, again?”

“Waiting for you to take your head out of your arse, though it seems I’ll be in for a long wait.” The tart rejoinder in a lovely, rolling Scottish brogue that he instinctively wants to wrap himself in doesn’t help his temper. Neither does the fact that Oliver is still too earnest despite the familiar barb in the words, as though he thinks he owes Marcus something. The stubborn set to his jaw is familiar too, viewed more than once when facing him on a Quidditch pitch.

It makes Marcus want to push him away for his own safety, because don’t you know what I am? Instead, his gaze is sulky, as though he’s a teenager again in a way he hasn’t been in years, and it’s solely fixed on Oliver. “I don’t like you, and I don’t want you here,” he says, and if that’s not the biggest lie he’s told in the past couple of years, he’s not entirely sure what is.

Oliver shrugs. “That’s too bad, Flint, because I’m not going anywhere.” He’s wearing a poloneck jumper, just like he used to at school when it got to winter weekends out of uniform, and Marcus has the fleeting, horrifying thought that maybe it covers bruises or worse. A second thought just as horrifying resurfaces: he still doesn’t have his wand.

That thought makes him abruptly change the subject. “Alright, Wood, since you’re here, be a good boy and tell me why I don’t have my wand.” It’s not a question. He doesn’t phrase it as one. To punctuate it and make it clear he’s not asking, Marcus opts to verbally twist the knife for good measure. “You owe me. That’s why you’re here, right? To settle the debt. So start talking.” That’s not a question either, because why else Oliver might be there is more than he can possibly handle getting into.

Oliver’s (Wood’s, damn it) expression darkens momentarily, as though he’s about to pick a fight. Marcus wants him to, because at least that would be normal, but he sees it the moment that Oliver registers he’s in a hospital bed all over again, sees the way his gaze turns pained and then the shutters draw closed again so he’s at a loss for what the other is thinking. He doesn’t like it. Oliver was always an open book, no filter, no love lost on his side of the equation. He doesn’t know what this new thing is.

He clears his throat brusquely. “Well?”

Oliver sighs. “They’re concerned about your mental state as well. That’s why you don’t have your wand. They thought you might try something you’d regret.”

Fury is, of course, the quickest and most reliable reaction. “So they thought they’d improve things by taking away the only piece of autonomy I had available to me for months? That’s genius thinking, that is. Who do I need to see to recommend them for promotion?”

Oliver’s lips twitch briefly then, clearly catching the sarcasm, but at the same time seemingly unable to smile at it. That’s fine, because it’s not funny at all.

Marcus exhales a sharp sigh, one that’s less exasperated by this point than unimpressed. “I suppose they thought I’d curse the whole place down, eh?” This time, it is a question, and the smile that goes with it isn’t genuine, it’s mean and sharp-edged. It’s an echo of all the ugly things that have stained his hands and his mind, and it occurs to him that throughout that, Oliver has been the only good thing, a pure thing he’d constructed for himself, a secret he kept that was sometimes the only reason he didn’t give in altogether. Now that’s done and it’s back to reality.

To his consternation, Oliver shakes his head, as though he can sense what Marcus is thinking. “No one believes that after the battle. You threw yourself in the way of someone that would have been dead if you hadn’t, without knowing whether you’d survive.” The words seemed hard for Oliver to speak, as though it was like a demon lived in his throat for as long as they sat there. “They didn’t know if you were going to pull through, the first couple of days.”

An eye-roll is Marcus’ first response to that, and he averts his gaze from Oliver then. “That was sort of the bloody point, Wood.” The words fall heavily in the room between them, but this time it’s not out of malice, it’s from defeat, an admission that he should have kept to himself. The anger hasn’t emptied its well yet, but for the time being, it’s quiet, a savage thing made somnolent again by the fact that he can feel the needle in his arm start to pour more potion into him. Presumably, it’s going to knock him out eventually.

Oliver’s own exhale is shaken, as though Marcus has punched him square in the solar plexus and it hurts, badly. After all these months of silence, it’s as though the casually cruel words aiming to drive him away are doing more damage than even the war has managed to. “Flint, you can’t just…”

Marcus wants to sit up again but the potion, damn it, feels like it’s got him pinned in place. That makes him edgy, makes him feel the cold sweat of panic beginning to prick, and he absolutely will not have a panic attack of any kind in front of an audience. He swallows hard, and Oliver seems unable to finish the sentence. It hangs there between them, unfinished.

That’s the moment that the door creaks open and the healer walks in, oblivious to the conversation that had been happening beforehand. Oliver leans back in the chair beside Marcus’ bed.

Marcus’ lip curls just slightly. “Come to check I’m still breathing?” he asks snidely. “Sorry to disappoint. You can go now, your duty is done.”

The healer does no such thing. “I’d hoped you’d be asleep by now,” he says with a tsk tsk sound that reminds Marcus of the teachers from school whenever he didn’t do his homework correctly. It does nothing to endear the man to him at all. “Evidently we need to increase your dosage. You shouldn’t have ripped those needles out of your arm as soon as you did, but Mr Wood tells me you have a remarkably high tolerance for pain.”

That causes Marcus’ gaze to narrow in Oliver’s direction, and it’s as accusing as it gets.

Oliver, to his credit (the little of it that Marcus is currently willing to give) doesn’t look away. “I’ve been in the Hospital Wing with you multiple times,” is the reminder that unexpectedly arrives, softer than he’s ever deserved. “You never took your painkillers. You always cast Evanesco.”

On the one hand, Marcus’ glare only intensifies, because Oliver’s just ratted him out to the healer. On the other, what does it even mean that Oliver remembers; how there seems to be something dark and sad behind his gaze ever since a few minutes ago. It doesn’t correlate with his real life knowledge of Wood, only the fantasy version he constructed in his head to have a reason to go on, and Marcus is fully aware of how incredibly unhealthy that was and is.

It’s only the healer’s voice that interrupts their charged stare, clearly ready to go for another lecture. “Well, there will be no hiding painkillers here. What were you thinking, taking those out? Did you just not realise the degree of damage you took?” It isn’t an indignant pair of questions, instead asked with the tone of someone who wants to understand the subject they are studying. It presses all of the wrong buttons for Marcus, and he endures it in silence until he can’t.

This is the moment he snaps. But it isn’t like every other time he’s lost his temper. No, this is different; his voice is surprisingly quiet and unsteady when he speaks. “Why does everyone want to know what I’m thinking suddenly? I’ve just spent the last two years having my mind pulled apart at a moment’s notice. All that I want is for everyone to stop trying to get into my head because I don’t want anyone in there ever again. Got it? It’s none of your business what I’m thinking.”

Dimly, he registers that Oliver has gone pale as he starts to understand what Marcus means. The healer looks appalled, because evidently, this was something undetectable while he was unconscious, and he’s beyond lashing out, because this has hit places he doesn’t want to go.

“Get out.” The words are quieter still, and there’s a flat, dulled down, deadly note to them.

Even half-conscious on a bed, drugged by the potion, it leaves to question what Marcus is capable of, the one thing no one has dared to think about so far. It’s a weak threat, but his voice carries all of it, like it’s every atom of a star at the moment of destruction.

The healer leaves. Oliver doesn’t, because Oliver hasn’t learned to be afraid of him, even though he should have.

When Marcus looks at him again, he thinks that he sees Oliver flinch, just a little around the eyes, and he knows he’s going to say something unforgivable if he isn’t left alone. “I meant you as well.” The words are empty. You need to go before I do any more things that I regret, and I can’t live with any more.

Oliver doesn’t listen. Instead, he does something that Marcus can handle even less. He climbs onto the bed and rests there next to him, close enough for Marcus to feel him breathe. “You’re really not a good listener, Flint. I already told you. I’m not leaving.”

Marcus’ hands suddenly feel too heavy, utterly ineffectual when he tries to raise them to push Wood right off the bed. Land on his arse. That’ll show him. Instead, his head starts to nod forward, and Oliver, the scheming bastard, must have known that the potion would take effect soon, had kept him talking until he had no choice but to go back to sleep again.

He’s so angry. He’s exhausted. He’s repeating the same cycle, inescapable, stuck on a loop of his own making. There’s wool against his face, something warm against his back. Oliver’s voice is there, he can feel it rumble in his chest, but the words don’t even register. It’s a warm sound, like copper and firelight, and it’s the last thing in his dwindling awareness before the world is lost altogether.

The frightening part is that he’s starting to want to wake up again. 

That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

[fairytalesintheend]

Punk Rock Ezra

Word count: 1520

Warnings: mention of suicidal thoughts, small mention of a suicide attempt, adult content, mentions of smut and cockwarming, language, I think that’s it but please lemme know

A/n: alright kiddos I have no idea what this is. Unedited, unbeta’d, barely revised, fully self indulgent Punk Rock Ezra. Inspired by the wonderful punk ezra hc’s from @rae-gar-targaryen’s beautiful brain. Loosely inspired by Punk Rock John by Neil Hilborn. Enjoy or tell me if it sucks😘 p.s. formatting might be fucked cause I copied from drive and pasted on mobile lmao

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The first time you saw Ezra he was crowd surfing up to the stage. You noticed the blonde streak in his hair and you watched it until it disappeared into the sea of people in the pit. At the next show the same streak caught your eye. Then the show after that and the one after that too. Ezra and that damned blonde streak were almost expected at any show you attended and you’d be kidding yourself if you thought it hadn’t become some sort of a comfort.

The first time you met Ezra, he’d pulled you up from the floor at a show. He’d asked if you were alright, brushed the dirt off your clothes then told you “Protect your face, birdie. If you get pushed, push back. You’ll be fine.” Then he threw you back into the pit.

One time he found you about to punch someone and grabbed you around your waist, pulling you back into the crowd. You were angry. At everything and nothing. You hated your life and the world and everything in it. You’d tried fighting him off of you but he held you firm against him. “Don’t start shit you can’t finish, birdie. You don’t know who their friends are, you’ll get yourself killed. Don’t be stupid.” He spun you around to face him but kept his grip on you. “We’ve all felt the way you feel, birdie. That’s why you’re here.” Ezra helped you protect yourself and let go at shows. Jumping and dancing and screaming your anger away instead of trying to take it out on some metal kid who wasn’t worth the time. He took your hand and showed you that this was a safe place. That everyone in the room had gone through shitty things and that you weren’t alone. That this was a place you belonged. He looked out for you and you looked out for him too. Which made falling in love with him all the more easy.

Ezra usually wore jeans that were cut off at the knee and ratty band t-shirts, most of which had the sleeves ripped off. His dirty black Chucks were the only shoes you ever saw him wear. He had tattoos of constellations and geometric designs that were scattered all over his arms. There were doodles and random pictures inked on his thighs that he’d done himself in high school. He also had a phrase in Latin on the left side of his neck. Astra inclinant, sed non obligant. “The stars incline us, they do not bind us.” He told you one day what it meant. “Fate can guide us birdie but we can’t let the stars do everything. It’s our job to be responsible for us and what we put into this world.”

He had a nose ring and his ears were pierced in three places. All he’d done himself over the sink in his bathroom. One time he offered to pierce your nose for you and while you declined at first, three weeks later you found yourself sitting on Ezra’s bathroom counter while he brought the hot needle to your face.

He had a scar on his cheek. Almost crescent moon shaped below his eye. The first time he told you how he got it he told you it was from a knife fight. Later on you’d find out he was trying to impress you when in actuality it was from falling off his skateboard when he was 17.

He’d ask you to touch up the blonde streak in his hair. He really could do it himself but he liked when you did it because he was convinced you did it much better than he ever did.

He talked all the time, about everything. Music, art, science, literature. He went on long rants about injustices in the world but they sounded more like monologues from your favorite play. You couldn’t do anything but stare, breathing him in while he strung together the pieces of his life for you. His voice wrote journal entries on your bedroom walls. He forced you to talk as well. “There’s a storm brewing in that head of yours. Can’t hide those eyes from me, Nightingale. They tell more stories than I do. Talk.” Sometimes you listened to him. You would talk about anything and everything or nothing at all. Whether you’d liked to admit it or not, it worked. Better than any other therapy you’d tried. Other times you’d turn away from him and cross your arms, curling into yourself. You’d hear him let out a long breath. Then he’d be at the stereo. He would pick a cd then turn up the volume almost as loud as it could go so you couldn’t hear your own thoughts anymore. He’d make you stand on the bed with him and sing. Scream the words as loud as you could until you felt better. “The church of punk rock is always open, birdie,” He told you once. “This is how you pray.”

You never thought you could love a sound more than you loved the sound of music until you heard Ezra moan your name against your neck as he moved inside you. The grunts and whines that fell from his lips creating a symphony that you wanted on repeat forever. The way he moved in you felt the closest to holy you were ever going to get. Oh how he worshipped you. And you him. You could spend hours here, the sanctuary of each other’s bodies. Hands, teeth, and tongues making their mark. He would stay inside you for a while after. Holding you, scattering soft kisses anywhere he could reach. Sometimes you’d fall asleep like this then wake up the next morning to worship each other all over again.

Ezra was a survivor. You knew that the first time you saw him. Everyone in that dirty basement was a survivor. Ezra talked about his entire life with you but you knew there were some things he kept hidden from the world. Not that you blamed him. You had your fair share of things you’d never told anyone. Of course, that changed over time. You both came to each other for confession. Whispered admissions of sin in the dark of Ezra’s bedroom. He told you things that made your heart ache. How could he be so gentle? So forgiving? When the world had done so much? Would you ever be? So forgiving of this world, so gentle toward yourself and this life? Or would this anger you held inside you always be there? You’d asked Ezra one night. “I am not as healed as you may imagine, Nightingale.” He said. “I do my share of praying more than you’d know.”

You took care of Ezra and in turn, Ezra took care of you. He’d saved you from yourself on more than one occasion. One night was particularly bad. You’d locked yourself in the bathroom with a kitchen knife. When Ezra showed up at your place he’d knocked on the door and you yelled at him to go away. To just let you do this. It would be better. So much better. But instead he broke the lock on the door when he kicked it open. He held his arms out to you with caution. Coaxed you to listen to him and let go as he moved closer to you. He’d pulled the knife out of your hands and pulled you into his arms. You fought him at first, wriggling in his arms until he backed against the wall and held you so you couldn’t move. The two of you sunk to the floor. You sobbed into his chest, hiccuping every few moments. Your breathing was still rapid. For the first time ever, Ezra just stayed silent. He ran his hand over your hair and held you tightly against him. He only spoke after your breathing wouldn’t calm down. “Shhh, shhh birdie I need you to slow down okay? Just breathe with me.” You stayed on the cold bathroom floor in his arms for what seemed like hours. Then Ezra picked you up, made you some food and sat with you on your couch. He didn’t try to get you to talk. He just put in a cd and turned up the volume. He kissed your forehead and then your lips. “One day we’ll leave this place birdie. I promise you. I’ll get you out of here.”

He kept his promise. Years after the first time you saw Ezra, he stands in your kitchen with your daughter on his hip. He’s making breakfast and singing to her while he stirs batter for pancakes. You’re not angry anymore. You take meds that work for you and you even have a therapist you don’t completely hate. Your life is so different than it used to be. You don’t need to pray as much as you used to but in times of trouble Ezra will still pop in a cd and turn up the volume and you can hear the first thing he said to you. “You’ll be fine.”

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Tags for fun: @rae-gar-targaryen @qveenbvtch @steeeeeeeviebb @zeldasayer @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @fleetwoodmactshirt @cinewhore @lokiaddicted @pascalplease @krissology @frannyzooey @mostly-megan @flightlessangelwings @voteforpedropascal @pettyprocrastination @artemiseamoon @justanotherblonde23

[scullysflannel]

☕️ + laurie garvey and/or certified

that's my judas! under the cut for length and suicide tw

when laurie says she's not doubting thomas ("doubting is easy"), she's judas ("he betrayed him anyway. because he was sure. he believed in something, and he acted on it"), she's right even when she's wrong. of course she's not sure of herself; she's never been sure. laurie is constantly looking for someone to take away the burden of her decisions, to tell her what to do, even as she has a hard time trusting anyone else with that responsibility. but as michael points out, judas might not have been all that sure of himself either if he killed himself.

what laurie does is act despite her uncertainty. and it's brutal. she betrays her family again and again. I find laurie hard to watch in season 1 because I do understand the impulse to shut down and run away, but I can't forgive her for doing it. I see myself in jill, left stranded by her mother's silence and rejection. I hate laurie's ability to feel the pain she's causing her family and her community and still keep inflicting it. everyone on the leftovers is pulled toward self-destruction and self-annihilation, but laurie's self-destruction has a high body count. you really have to believe the world ended to do what she does, and yet I don't think she really believes it; she just knows it would be easier if she did. the GR pricks the nerve that says there's no point to anything, we're too far gone. laurie proves the limits of that mindset: how can there really be no point if there are still people who love her? how can there be no point if it's clear she still loves them?

none of that love makes it easy to come back from the edge. laurie never finds the right way to help. her post-GR transition group has good intentions and a terrible track record. the fact that she's trying to do the right thing is more powerful to me because she's winging it, but it's frustrating. as a former therapist she should know better. I'm obsessed with the fact that laurie doesn't seem like a very good therapist. maybe helping others was always destructive for her. maybe I shouldn't have compassion for her efforts when other people wind up dead, and when she drives her son into the arms of a cult and makes him crave abuse. but her failures are compelling because she's the one making them. she's done handing her decisions over to a cult.

even when laurie and john (a relationship that feels very "sure, why not") pick up the palm reading scam, the best you can say about how she spends her days is that she's at a lower risk for hurting people. she's giving them the kindness of a lie because she believes they're asking for it. sure, why not. this is laurie feigning an acceptance she does not have. people want to be lied to, and she hates that, but she wants to give them what they want. her book of hard truths got rejected; her actual hard truths got people killed. she's trying to make peace with a world that prefers the comfort of a good story. she and nora have that in common.

but it's not natural for her, and what makes laurie so thrilling in the second half of season 3 is that she lets herself be the truth teller again. there's a purity to laurie as soon as she gets on that flight to australia. kevin's relapse makes her snap back into tough love mode. the fact that this woman who began the series not speaking gets at least one come-to-jesus chat with every main character is so satisfying. she tears matt a new one; she becomes nora's therapist; she brings out a tenderness in senior that he doesn't have with his own son; she finally tells kevin what they lost on the fourteenth. catharsis is honest conversation. in those moments it's not just that laurie is at her best, but that the person she's with becomes better too. laurie, who was silent, becomes a kind of cone of silence for the people around her, and finally becomes a good therapist; she makes people admit things they wouldn't be comfortable saying to anyone else. she has that power because of how far she's come since the story began. her best therapy is not to project strength but to admit weakness. ("we're all gone.")

I don't know what to do with how artistically beautiful I find the scene out on the water, or how well I think "we're all gone" would have worked as a final goodbye, a final forgiveness, between exes. I think laurie's ultimate ending — not killing herself — challenges the impulse to think death is more artistically pure. I have that impulse too. I think the end of "certified" would have been a stunning final ending for laurie. and yes, technically it is a cheat that she survives; damon lindelof has said "certified" was written with the intention that laurie was committing suicide, but the writers’ room got too depressed to break the last two episodes, so they changed their minds. but what’s wrong with that? laurie being pulled back from the brink by listening to the kids she once abandoned is powerful. I wish we got more of it, kind of, but I also like how much is left for us to understand on our own. what else is there but to help and be helped?

[the-alice-of-hearts]

Kids Again Ch 4

<Previous First Next>

He's always running with no one to keep warm

Two years she watched him run the rooftops and do his best to live up to the image that Bruce had, it wore heavy on him. 

She saw him get more reckless, and hurt more often. It was like he was running in circles, he was trying so, so hard to be better. She couldn’t even tell if he knew that’s what he was doing. So she stayed in his head as much as she could, making sure that he didn’t die on her. 

Marinette came to class with bags under her eyes. Her friends watched her up her coffee intake, she moved everyday like she knew something bad was going to happen. She got quieter, more clumsy. She would be there one moment and then in Gotham the next. Kim walked next to her, made sure he was ready to catch her. Alix went with Marinette any place the boys couldn’t. They watched over her; made sure that she didn’t get hurt. 

“Mari?” Alix had asked her in a small voice one day, “when did you sleep last?”

The four of them were lying on her floor, working on homework like they always did. Kim and Nino looked over to see her response. 

“What day is it today?” Marinette stalled for time, hoping that it hadn’t been too long. They got overprotective when she went too long with sleeping, and it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with today. Unfortunately it looked like they weren’t going to answer until she did. She sighed loudly, “I think I got a decent amount on thursday. Slept almost 5 hours before... waking up.”

Kim reached over to hug her, they all knew what was unsaid. She woke up in pain, scared, and hurting.”

Nino came closer as well, “Netté, today is wednesday.” He reached out and held her hands, “go to sleep. We will watch out for you. He usually naps before patrol anyways yeah?”

She rubbed her eyes, “yeah... he does… but we still have homework to finish.”

Alix grabbed the papers that Marinette was reaching for, “and we can finish our own work then help you with yours after you nap.”

Marinette bit her lip trying to stay alert enough to protest, “you’ll fail english without me.”

Kim laughed and tapped his fist on her head, “at the rate you’re going we’ll fail with you too. Please em gái, take a nap. Just a short one will do.” ((Vietnamese: little sister))

---

With that they convinced her to go lay down. The three of them looked at each other, Alix spoke up first, “what do we do if…”

“If he dies.” Nino picked up the train of thought, “I don’t know that we can do anything.”

“I swear to any of the gods listening, if he hurts her, I will kill him myself.” Kim looked at Mari. She was sleeping heavily, but he could see her start to toss and turn. “He’s already giving her nightmares.” 

“All we can do is be steady for her. She needs us to be strong, so we will be. Alix, do you think your dad will let you stay here for a while?” Nino had started planning out all of this weeks ago.

Alix nodded, “yeah I think he’s about to go to an excavation site soon anyways. My brother would be glad to not have to look after me.”

“Good. Kim, can you run interference with the teachers? This is hard enough on her, we don’t need her to have extra stress on her plate.”

“Yeah I can take care of that.” Kim was still looking at her so he saw when she finally let out a sigh and settled down, “how do we make her sleep though?”

“I can help with that.” Sabine had climbed up to check in on then and heard the conversation taking place, “We have her with a therapist, and it will be easy enough to get her prescribed meds for her anxiety and to help her sleep. It’ll just be a matter of making sure she takes them.”

Nino nodded at her, “We can make sure she’s taking them in the morning. I have to take mine each morning and evening on a schedule as well as needed for worse times. I can help there.”

Sabine smiled at him, “thank you Nino, that would help a lot. Alix you can stay here as long as you want, but if it gets to be too much please let us know.” She took on a stern voice, “You shouldn’t have to bear this alone. None of you are to take on more than you can handle. I know you want to help her, but you’re all kids too. I’m not above banning you from the house if I think you are putting too much stress on yourselves.” She reached out to grasp Nino’s hand, “I mean it. I know you know very well what she is going through, but your mom and I have a deal.” 

Nino smiled back, “yes ma’am. I promise.”

Sabine stood up from where she had sat near them, “With that settled, who wants to help me bring up some food for everyone. You all should eat, and Marinette will need to eat when she wakes up.”

Kim offered to go help her. After they left Nino turned to Alix, “you have to make sure she’s taking her meds at night. She won’t want to, and she will try to hide it. But you have always known us better than we know ourselves. You have to make sure she takes them.”

Alix nodded at him grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze, “You know I will. Found family, right?”

“Found family.” he repeated the vow. 

---

Marinette stopped talking one day. She was getting sleep, but she still wasn’t in Paris enough. So she stopped talking. If she didn’t say anything then people noticed less when she left in the middle of a conversation. 

No one else at school noticed. Well no one but Chloé, but even she knew that this was off limits for teasing. Chloé may have become a bitch to Marinette for no known reason, but she knew the limits on what was too far. 

Mariette went silent so Kim got louder. The three hoped that if the teachers were focused on him being a clown that they wouldn’t notice Marinette not participating in class. Kim and Alix started a ‘rivalry’, making sure that any eyes that might stray to Marinette would land back on them. Nino had Marinette sit next to him so he could take notes for her, and nudge her if a teacher was looking at her. He also had the worst job, making her actually take her anxiety meds. Alix and Kim played distraction, Nino played mother hen. 

Marinette from a year ago would still have complained. She would have reminded them that she was a big girl and she could take care of herself. This wasn’t Marinette from a year ago, this was their best friend so scared for her soulmate’s life that she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

---

Then something unexpected happened. 

Marinette spoke up during their study session unprompted for the first time in weeks, “He’s not Robin anymore.”

Alix sharply looked up from where they had been laying, “What?”

They all hesitated waiting for Marinette to continue, “Bruce saw his stitches, he... well he blamed Jason.” She scoffed at the thought, “like the asshole didn’t drive him into his recklessness.” 

“Netté, what happens now?” Nino was always the first one to speak up.

“Bruce said that he was wrong, that he shouldn’t have trusted Jason as Robin. He ran away. He’s stronger now, so being on the streets isn’t as dangerous. But he’s back out there. He went to one of his old hideouts. I don’t know what he’s doing next…” she trailed off and they all waited for her next thought. 

The boys had both moved closer, Alix was still laying on their back looking up at Marinette. They all knew that when her thinking face came out they needed to wait for her to speak up. 

She took a deep breath, “I need you guys to help me get him here. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I totally understand if you can’t help me, but it’s just-“

“How are we going to do that?” Kim asked her, cutting her off. They were all willing to do whatever it took to make Marinette smile again. 

She stared at him for a moment, her mouth in a perfect O, “you’ll really help?”

Alix nudged her leg, “found family right?”

Marinette smiled at that, “yeah, found family.”

She laid out her plan. It would take them all because it involved smuggling Marinette to Gotham, and her parents would notice if she started acting unusually in front of them. 

It only took a week to get things together. Alix had convinced their dad that they were looking into a historical artefact in class and wanted to prove their teacher wrong so they needed to go to America with Marinette as a witness. He bought the story easily, believing Alix when they told him they needed to take Marinette specifically because she knew the city better. Reminding him that her soulmate grew up there. So with two plane tickets the plan was finally in motion. Kim had been bringing his gym bag empty to the group study sessions so that Mari could pack clothes in it. Nino had a suitcase that he had smuggled out when his parents weren’t home. All of it was slowly collected at Alix’s house. Since their dad was still out of town they only had to drop home to take care of their plants, so it made it a really easy place to keep things. 

Then it took another week for their departure date. For the entire two weeks Marinette had been so focused on going to Gotham that she didn’t notice that Jason had been blocking her. Later she would know that he didn’t even realize he was doing it. 

They were at school the day before they would be on their way to Gotham when Mari checked in on Jason, making sure that she could find him. Hoping that he was in a place that she would easily be able to find him. He wasn’t. He wasn’t even in Gotham. He was in a desert, with a woman. She looked a little like Jason, but his mom had died… and this wasn’t Catherine.

Marinette looked up at Kim with fear in her eyes, “Something is wrong.” she said it quietly. With Alix’s hearing, Kim’s ability to read lips, and Nino sitting next to her it was easy to be sure that they all knew something was happening. 

Kim acted fast, shooting a rubber band at Chloé made her stand up and start yelling. That provided enough distraction for Alix to get over to Marinette’s other side. With Nino and Alix surrounding her, and Kim playing distraction she was able to completely follow Jason. It wasn’t good, he was with the woman. He called her mom, guess that explained why he wasn’t in Gotham. When Joker appeared Marinette gasped. 

_____________________________________

She was loud enough that Rose and Juleka looked over at her. Alix shielded Marinette’s body as much as they could, trying to make sure that no one could see her face. The terror on it shouldn’t be seen by anyone else. They took care of each other, and Marinette would be mortified if she found out someone else knew what she was going through. But not even with the combined efforts of all three of their strengths could they keep the attention off of her when the screaming started. 

It was like listening to a horror movie. Marinette’s screams ripped through the classroom. If you asked anyone to describe it they would tell you it was like being in a room that was filled with terror. 

“Everyone get out!!” Chloé yelled loudly. Alix looked up at her in surprise, not expecting Chloé of all people to help. Between Chloé and Kim they got the classroom cleared in less than a minute. “I’m gonna stand outside the door so no one comes in. Just, take care of her yeah?” with that she walked out of the room and closed the door. They could see her shadow still there. True to her word no one came in the classroom. Unfortunately everyone in their hall could hear the screams. 

“Netté, please. You have to listen to my voice. You have to come back, come back to Paris. You don’t want to see this. Please come back to us.” Alix finally clued back into Nino’s voice. He was trying to get her to come back, but it didn’t seem to be working. 

____________________________

Marinette wasn’t listening to Nino, she was caught in this moment. Watching Joker beat Jason, his blood spilling out on the floor. Then something happened that opened everything. Her mother had once told her that some soulmates could talk to each other in times of crisis, and this would count as one. 

She could hear Jason’s voice, ‘please let me pass out, please let me pass out, she doesn’t deserve to see this, please whatever deity might be listening let me pass out!’

Then she heard others in the link, ‘Jay bird! Please tell me you’re there! Little wing I’m trying to get there faster, but you have to wake up. There’s a bomb, you have to get up. Jay you have to get up now! You have to go to the door.’ 

“Jason please! Please wake up. We need you, we need you to wake up. I need you!” Marinette didn’t realise she had spoken out loud, but she would feel that her friends were all holding her. 

‘You don’t really know me, but please live for us. We all need to meet you one day.’

“Jason you have to get to the door.” She was sobbing now.

‘Jay, wake up!’

He started moving, crawling towards the door. For a moment she had hope that he would make it. She could feel everyone pleading with the gods to just get him out of there alive. Then he tried the door, it was locked. He didn’t have enough strength or time to get out of there, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never got to love you Marinette.’

If she hadn’t already been in Kim’s lap she would have fallen to the ground. All the energy in her body was gone. It was like a huge chunk of her had been ripped out. 

“Mari, can you hear us?” she heard Alix’s soft voice.

“Netté, we need you to talk to us.”

Her sobs had turned into a hysterical laugh, “he’s dead!” She looked at Nino, still crying but becoming worse by the moment, “the fucking clown killed him!” 

Kim was running his hands through Marinette’s hair, all three of them waited for her to break back down. They had gone through it with Nino, they would be just as steady for Mari. 

After her laughing turned back to sobs Kim wrapped his arms around her again. Holding her tight, “we’re here for you em gái. We’re here.”

“He’s dead… Jay’s dead…” she sniffled turning to press her face into Kim’s chest, “and his last thought was of me.” 

Nino and Alix had moved in and were hugging her now too. “Netté, I promise, it gets easier.”

[runrundoyourstuff]

Seasons

(A Steven Universe Fic, 2632 words)

Written with love for a holiday exchange with the wonderful @mimik-u !

Prompt: Steven teaches one of the Diamonds about something beautifully mundane (a la Peridot learning about rain.)

--

It’s almost comical how the Dondai pales in size when compared to the Arm Ship—and the magnitude of the difference only grows as Steven descends the ridge. There are some items, both of human and Gem origin, that seemed larger when he was smaller—when he was younger—when everything mysterious in the world, every new thing he learned about himself, filled him with wonder. The Diamond ships, however, are not among these items. They’re as large now as they always seemed to him, if not quite as foreboding. As are the Diamonds themselves, and he is reminded of this, as Yellow disembarks from her spacecraft.

She doesn’t see him right away. Or if she does notice the car, she doesn’t have the frame of reference to recognize it as his, and even after he parks it beside the ship and gets out, it’s several moments before she turns around and acknowledges him standing there.

“Steven!”

“Hey, Yellow.”

“When I called, I hadn’t realized…” She sputters. “Your...your family returned my message to inform me that you were leaving on a conquest—”

“A conquest?”

“Yes, they said that you were going to travel—”

“Yeah, but not on a conquest!”

“Of course, of course, a scouting mission, then—”

“No! Nothing like that! Just a trip! I just...needed to hit the road for a while. Figure out what’s next.”

“I...right, of course. Your—I mean, the Pearl said that you would be taking a hiatus from your Diamond duties…”

At this, Steven chuckles. “Pearl wants me to.” But then he becomes serious. “I shouldn’t laugh. She’s trying to make sure that I take care of myself. She—all of them really, want to make sure I know that I don’t have to be involved in any Gem stuff if I don’t want to. That it’s my choice. And ya know, it’s true that I don’t want it to be my whole life, not like it was when I was a kid. And because there’s no hierarchy anymore, I do want to give other Gems a chance to manage things on Earth if they want to—to show them it doesn’t always have to be a Diamond, and I’m not a Diamond anyway—but I do want to be involved, ya know? Or at least know what’s going on! I put so much work into everything, and not all of it was bad. I was really proud of a lot of what we did, and the Gems are my family…” A pause. “Anyway, that’s all to say that I routed some of the messages from the Base to my phone.”

“I see. I…” She pauses. “I didn’t intend...You did not need to come. I merely called because I didn’t want to catch you off guard. Give your...our...Given my history, I thought if I showed up on your planet unannounced—”

“It’s not my planet.”

“No, of course not. I meant the planet on which you reside. I’ve already...I did not intend to make you feel that…that you needed to come fix—”

Steven raises a hand. “I know. I just happened to be in the area, so I thought I’d stop by. Say hi.”

“Ah. Alright.” The silence resounds. Yellow’s eyes flit away.

“So,” Steven says after a moment—looking for something, anything, to cut through the quiet. “Why Zona?”

“Is that what this place is called?” Yellow glances around. “I needed an area of the Earth where I would cause the least disruptions, where I could dig a sufficiently large hole such that I could access the Cluster. I initially planned on going to one of the Kindergartens, as we’d already irrevocably destroyed all hope of organic life thriving there—I thought I could minimize the destruction. But each already has a fairly extensive subterranean framework that makes it impossible for me to dig deep enough.” She sighs. “I realize this place isn’t perfect. My digging will certainly disrupt some of the plant life. But it appeared at least that there were few humans in the vicinity…”

“Mm.” Steven leads against the hood of his car. “I’m surprised you brought your ship out here and didn’t just Warp. We’re not that far from the Beta Kindergarten, and there’s a Warp there...”

“Those Warps weren’t built for us. We’re much too large.”

“I guess that’s true, but you could always shapeshift.”

“Hmm. I suppose. But there was also the equipment to bring.”

“Equipment?”

“Yes, I...There are...billions of shards in the Cluster. I figured...if I am going to dismantle it and reconstruct each of the Gems whose shards it conatiend, it would likely be easier for me to do it on Earth, rather than bringing all the Shards back to Homeworld. I don’t want to risk losing any of them or damaging any of them even further in transit…And while I may need to ultimately to transport some of them back to Homeworld to locate all the pieces, and though it may be disconcerting for the other Gems to reform on Earth...I…” She leaves the syllable hanging in the air, turns her head away. Steven can just barely make out her tense jaw as though she is gritting her teeth. Sparks radiate from her skin.

“Yellow? Are you...okay?”

“I’m fine!” But then she bows her head, inhales and releases, murmurs: “I apologize, Steven. I am not angry with you. I simply…It has been difficult enough for me to face each of the Gems I have reconstructed on Homeworld. Once they recover from the shock and the terror, they have each looked at me with such disdain. And those Fusion experiments, while they were certainly terrible, pale in comparison to the Cluster. I can only imagine what each of the Gem’s contained within it will feel. And I will deserve it. I hurt so many Gems in the service of the Empire.”

Steven opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, Yellow continues, speaking ever rapidly, ever louder, as though desperate to expel the words. “Do not try to assuage my guilty conscience! That...is not your responsibility. I shouldn’t have just put you in a position to think that it was.”

Another tentative backpedaling, Steven thinks. A walking on eggshells moment, like he’s witnessed with the Gems and Dad over the past several months. And difficult though it is for him to sometimes believe, it’s not as though Yellow is wrong, at least not if he trusts his therapist. But there is a distant look in her eye, a panicked tension in her cheeks, which, when coupled with the fact that this is the first time he’s seen her since his breakdown, makes Steven wonder if she is remembering that day on the beach.

His own memories of it are fuzzy-to-nonexistant; he remembers the pain, and the panic, and the anger he’d held despite knowing that he shouldn't. Then, he has a vague impression of multiple embraces, of Connie kissing his forehead, of crying hot, cathartic tears...And then he’d woken up in the Cluster’s hand, with the eyes of most of the people he loved and almost everyone he’d ever fought all on him.

Despite his own lack of recollection, however, Connie assures him that she’d given everyone—the Diamonds included—something of a blunt talking to that day, a rallying speech, but she won’t elaborate on the specifics of what exactly she’d said. Might that—whatever its contents— be behind Yellow’s hasty assurances now?

“Okay,” Steven responds finally. “I won’t try to make you feel less guilty. But can I show you something?”

Yellow furrows her eyebrows. “Very well.”

“It’s just on the top of the canyon.”

They deliberate for a few moments on the details. Yellow offers to carry him, but even if she’s not White, Steven declines being held in a Diamond’s hand, and while she could shapeshift to fit in the passenger seat of the Dondai, she ultimately elects to simply follow behind the car as Steven slowly drives it up the cliff.

They reach the plateau just as the sun begins to dip in the horizon, casting a golden glow over the grass, over the Autumn leaves, just starting to paint themselves with the vibrant shades that return year after year.

Steven opens the door and steps out. “You never spent much time on Earth, did you?”

Yellow considers. “No.”

“Do you know what I think my mom fell in love with about this planet?”

“Organic life, of course. Humans.” She gestures to Steven. “Obviously.”

“Well, yeah, but not just them. Us. I think it was this stuff too.”

Yellow squints. “These weeds?! These...dying outgrowths?!”

“With things that change. Things that grow. There’s so much of it here.”

“Hm.”

Steven paces over to the grass, then sinks down onto it so that it brushes against his bare calves. It’s mostly soft on his skin but there are dryer patches too, scratchier places on the ground as some of the longer areas start to dry out for the season. The sun dips lower in the sky, and it leaks hues of pink and orange onto the daytime canvas of darkening blue. Yellow looms behind him.

“Feel this.” He pats the ground next to him, and tries not to wince as Yellow’s gargantuan hand settles down on the grass. “You might not be able to tell, but it’s growing. Even right now. By the time the snow—frozen water that falls from the sky—starts to cover it in a few months, it’ll probably be a few inches taller than it is right now. And then it’ll take a break for a while, but when Spring comes next year—when the weather gets warmer again—it’ll start again.

“The trees too. Look out there—they grow taller every year, and every year the leaves change into those beautiful colors you can see. And the shades are similar every year, but never exactly the same. Then the leaves fall off, and then bud again and come back. And the trees keep getting taller. And every time the leaves return, the whole tree is a little bit different too.”

Yellow hesitates. “These are familiar to me. Someone, I believe a Peridot—your Peridot—”

“She’s not my Peridot, but I know who you mean.”

“Yes...Well, she brought some of these...trees...from Earth to Homeworld, and determined how best to make them grow there. I’ve been gazing at them through the windows of the palace ever since, but I hadn’t realized how elaborate, how ever-present, their growth cycles were…”

“I’ve lived on Earth my whole life, and I only just started thinking about it recently. It’s easy to take for granted, but it’s really incredible when you stop to think about it.” He angles his head upward. “And it’s not just the plants. Look at the sky. It changes like this every day.” A pause. “Well, it’s really not the sky that’s changing—Connie told me that it’s an effect of how the planet moves around our sun. But from down here on Earth, it looks like it’s always changing. In a different way every day. I don’t think it’s like that on Homeworld.”

Yellow settles next to him at last, squatting, and then kneeling. “It isn’t. Things are constructed on Homeworld—not grown. We have a sun, but our sky does not transform like this.”

“Exactly. And I think that’s why my mom fell in love with the Earth so much. She was so in awe of how everything naturally grew and changed here.” Steven sighs, clenches him gemstone beneath his hand. “I’m still angry at her a lot of the time, but, like, I get it. She saw herself as this monster.” Here Steven pauses, glances away for a moment before finally letting the words return. “And she didn’t think that she was capable of growth or change. All she thought she could do was pretend to be someone else. And then she found herself on this planet where all anything did was grow for real, and she wanted to be a part of that even in some small way, so she made me.”

“Steven…”

“But the point is, she was wrong. She could have grown as herself. I think she did, even if she couldn’t see it. And she and I aren't the only Gems that grew. All of my friends and family have. None of us is the same as we were when I was a kid. Maybe it just took coming to Earth to see that, ya know? Gems can grow and change, just like the trees can, and the grass, and the sky.

“So yeah,” Steven continues. “White hurt you, and you hurt Mom, and Mom hurt Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst and Spinel and you, and everyone she hurt hurt me, and I hurt Jasper and Dad and a lot of people and could have hurt a lot more, and you hurt all the Gems who were corrupted, and who became the Fusion experiments and the Cluster...and that’s all true, and we all have to deal with that and make the things we did wrong right the best that we can. And it’s hard, and it sucks. But the ways we’ve been hurt and hurt other people aren’t all we are. We can grow and change too. As ourselves. I think the Earth is just one big reminder of that.”

Yellow’s brows are once again furrowed, her jaw agape. “I…”

“So, yeah, it’s going to be hard to face all the Gems in the Cluster as you put them all back together. But it’s the right thing to do. And if it ever becomes too much, you can always come up here, and watch the world change and grow to remind yourself that you’re growing too. You’re better than you were, and if you keep working at it, you’ll keep getting better.”

Then, without waiting for Yellow to respond, Steven stands, walks back over to the Dondai. “Now, I gotta hit the road. I want to get to Vegas by tomorrow. It was nice to see you, Yellow.”

“You as well, Steven.” Yellow rises to her feet.

“Good luck,” he calls out the window as he pulls away, and glancing in the rearview mirror, he sees Yellow’s arm raised in farewell, something like a small, apprehensive smile on her lips.

Six months later, after a sojourn up and down the West Coast, Steven returns to the ridge en route back to Beach City for a visit. He pulls up just as the sun is rising over the canyon, glinting off Yellow’s arm ship, and off of the chest and arms and backs of the little gaggle of Gems gathered next to the ship and the adjacent hole. Yellow is not among them, though. She stands on the crest of the cliff, gazing at the trees, at the little buds beginning to spring into being on each branch.

“Steven.” She turns to him in greeting as he gets out of the car.

“You’ve been busy!”

“Yes, we’re progressing nicely.”

“We?”

Yellow nods. “Some of the Gems I reconstructed from the Cluster decided to remain here to help. Then others in Little Homeworld—and even a few on Homeworld itself—learned about what we were doing, and traveled here to volunteer.” She pauses. “They’re here for the sake of the Gems inside the Cluster, not for me. Still, it is nice not to be alone.”

“Mm.”

Yellow turns from the trees to the canyon, in the direction of the rising sun. The growing orange light catches her Gemstone too, and it glimmers in it. “It’s a beautiful morning.”

“Yeah,” Steven says. “It is.”

[ao3]

[jupitermelichios]

Smallville S3E5 - Perry

It was a wild decision to introduce Perry White in an episode specifically designed to make the audience dislike him. It’s not like he’s a beloved character and one of the only comics characters you could rely on the audience to recognise or anything…

Nothing more natural than opening an episode with Clark expositting what solar flares are to his parents in response to being asked to help put away groceries. There has to be a more natural way of doing that, surely. He’s literally watching a TV report on it and they cut off the TV to have him look directly at the camera and explain it to the audience instead. amazing.

Michael McKeen is to Perry White what Amy Adams is to Lois Lane. Which is to say, terrible

This guy sees some fence posts and no tools, and instead of concluding that they’re going to put the fence up later, he immediately assumes Clark is driving the posts into the ground with his bare hands and superstrength, and I really hate that he’s right because that is chloe sullivan levels of completely deranged assumptions

Lex’s therapist doesn’t believe that malaria is a real disease?! Wait, do the writers not know malaria is real either, or is this something specific to her character, I am fascinated

Oh wow, this episode is partly about Lana’s dead parents… Is this the moment the writers notice they made them all white?!

Chloe’s changed her hair, and it’s considerably less 90s and yet somehow noticeably worse. Someone get this girl a zigzag parting, stat!

I am kind of fascinated that ‘Lex spends 6 weeks in jamaica hallucinating that he’s marooned on a deserted island with a guy who’s really into him’ is a plot point that’s actually sticking around and has consequences. Really thought that was going to be a decision the writers immediately regretted and tried to pretend never happened, but no, 4 episodes later this is the closest thing to actual continuity the show has

Fascinated to know at what point in their acquaintance Lana decided she could just sic Lex on anyone who annoyed her. Even more fascinated to know at what point Lex decided he was going to allow it

Lex stepping out of a beam of pure light like this is close encounters of the third kind was a fascinating filming choice. Is Lex an alien? Oh god that would be the biggest power move if the writers just ended the show by revealing that lex has also been alien this entire time, unrelated to clark. Until they specifically tell me otherwise, this is my personal canon now

Okay, Clark accidentally yeeting tractors into the sky is the first believable reason for the kents being perpetually broke this show has ever presented. Also objectively a hilarious use of his powers, someone give the writers a gold star

Always fascinated by universes where alcohol just straight up makes people trip balls. Why are bars legal?! Driving drunk must have an insanely high lethality rate

Chloe’s ongoing refusal to believe Lionel might not be on the up and up is such a bizarre bit of character writing, i kind of love it

Oh god, Pete’s here. I was so hopeful this was going to be a Pete-free episode

Genuine question, how the fuck does LuthorCorp have the ability to force Lex to have therapy? His therapist is refusing to sign off on his mental health. But he’s not in a hospital and he has a largely ceremonial office job, so what the fuck are the consequences of that?! What does signing off even mean in this context?! I’m not saying I want to read lex’s contract of employment but i really want to read lex’s contract of employment. Honestly though, requiring a certificate of sanity for employees would actually be an pretty good idea for a business that exists in the same universe as the joker honestly

I really want to call bullshit on Lex’s therapist just yelling at him for not being willing to open up about his trauma after a couple of sessions… but she was hired by his dad so that’s actually entirely believable

Turns out Clark using his powers in front of a reporter was supposed to be his powers acting up. I genuinely thought that was just Clark being Clark

Lex just threatened to murder Perry White, and we’re supposed to think that it’s proof Lex is having a breakdown, but perry is a smallville character, so it’s entirely reasonable. As always Lex, you’re doing amazing and we’re all behind you 100%

Even by the standards of the kents, saying “oh. no.” without inflection and not moving is a wild lack of reaction to your house and son catching fire in front of you

DO NOT GET INTO CARS WITH DRUNK MEN WHO’VE THREATENED YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS LANA!!! Jesus, how are you even still alive?!

Perry white actually just straight up threatening to commit suicide if clark doesn’t reveal he has secret superpowers is an incredible bit of writing even for smallville. No one except the kents and pete have any evidence superpowers exist, the only superhero we know exists at this point is green arrow, but perry’s like ‘while i was tripping balls i thought i saw this kid run very fast so he can definitely fly and will catch me when i yeet myself off this dam to my certain death’

I can only assume the writers were 100% certain they would never get as far as Lois, because any version of lois worth the name would throw perry off the roof of the planet on her first day

Oh shit, Lana has canonically realised spending all her time hanging out in graveyards is a weird unhealthy thing to do, what the fuck is going on with her this season, it’s almost like she’s an actual character. I’m not sure I like it.

Lana just said she’s emotionally replaced her dead parents with Clark. What the fuck horrifying incest version of friendzoning is this. I take back everything good i said about her character development this season. What the fuck.

So the writers just spent an entire episode setting up that when clark gets hired by the planet… it’s because perry white feels bad about trying to murder him that one time, and not because he’s good. And to make sure we know this, perry’s exit like this episode is about how clark is bad at journalism. Is this just the writers being weird as usual, or did they actually realise that no one on earth would willingly hire smallville universe clark kent?

[idga-buck]

Some and Others, 3/?

Earth’s mightiest heroes save the city again, but that’s never the end of the story.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 4,301

Content: canon typical violence, death, destruction, swearing

Bucky was going to call. He just didn’t. He was surprised you hadn’t and overwhelmingly disappointed that it meant if he was going to apologize, it was a conversation he’d have to initiate himself. It could wait though. Just a little longer while he figured out what he wanted to say.

A week later, the Post ran a story about the same gossip site that had leaked your photo of him being shut down after many of their stories and photos were found to be fake. A rarity for the world of journalism these days, Sam noted casually as they stopped at a newspaper cart. Bucky bought a couple candy bars and watched the man with the thick black mustache and the gold chain slip copies of the article in front of a few of his worst sellers. Could he actually be that lucky? It was an easy out after a week of dodging questions and trying to remind the world to stay out of his business.

“So that photo of you? The secret girlfriend?” Sam waited for Bucky to respond, but when the centenarian opted to buy a Pay Day instead, he watched closer. Bucky hated that. Sam said he had a staring problem, but Sam was the one with x-Ray vision. He could read people, read a room, read Steve’s body language from across a battlefield and adjust his position without being told. As annoyed as Bucky acted when paired up with Sam Wilson, he was one of the few people in this century that Bucky Barnes respected. Truly. Except for that moment on a street corner when brown eyes were scanning his complete lack of guts and deciding what was worth commenting on.

“Yeah,” Bucky ripped open the wrapper a little too aggressively and responded with peanuts between his teeth. “It wasn’t real.”

Sam nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets while Bucky stuffed his face. “I don’t know how you land the fake girlfriend story, when I’m right here,” they started walking away from the stand while Sam jabbered on. “And lookin’ as fine as I do? Come on, man,” he danced ahead of Bucky a few steps, forcing him to look up. “You know this would make a better story.”

Before Bucky could say anything, a loud crash echoed between the buildings. Nothing was visible from their block, but both men, trained for combat, were instantly on alert.

“That for us?” Sam asked, eyeing the busy intersection.

“No,” said Bucky, a clipped tone in his voice as he shook his head and started walking again.

Another crash, this time accompanied by the faint human noises that usually follow tragedy.

“You sure about that?” Sam’s eyebrow shot up.

Sirens from every kind emergency response vehicle blared in the distance, growing louder then quieter again as they wove their way through the streets, changing directions to avoid traffic.

Bucky pointed at a passing fire truck, waiting until it had turned down another street before speaking. “See? They got it.”

Then Sam’s phone rang and Bucky swore, planting his hands on his hips while whoever was on the other line confirmed that the emergency growing in the distance was in fact for them. Sam placed the call on speaker and gave their current location. Stark’s voice was muffled and metallic, the way it usually was while calling from inside his fancy helmet, but he told them to stay put as he did a fly by with Sam’s equipment.

“Tell the Tin Man he’s got a special delivery,” Tony informed them from somewhere overhead.

“They're your wings,” Bucky grumbled, looking up from the ground as the familiar glare of Iron Man’s thrusters came into view. “And your robot.”

“First of all,” Sam informed him. “Red Wing isn’t a robot. He’s a drone.”

“It,” Bucky corrected, “is a robot.”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that,” said Sam before pointing up to where Iron Man had doubled back to get a better angle. “And… unlike some of us present, my body is exactly as God created it, flesh and bone.”

“Pop up, deep center,” Tony’s voice rang out obnoxiously through Sam’s phone once more.

Bucky watched a black bundle falling from the sky, trying to position himself under it and pushing more than one pedestrian out of his way to do so. “Actually, I was a catcher back in ‘32.”

“THEN CATCH!” Sam hollered just before the EXO Falcon gear landed square in Bucky’s chest, forcing him off his feet and onto his ass, skidding to a stop on a sidewalk while the people around them scattered, gasping and grabbing at their phones to take pictures of the two Avengers. Bucky laid flat on his back, both arms still wrapped around the bundle, and took a deep breath when Sam stood over his head, arms shooting out to his sides as he yelled “SAFE!”

Bucky groaned and tossed the black bag up into Sam’s arms, hard enough to make him stumble but not enough to knock him down. “Should have said ‘out.’” Bucky grumbled and Sam chuckled as he dug through the bag for his equipment. “Safe makes it sound like I-”

“You really wanna argue about baseball right now,” Sam laughed, securing his wings over his torso and releasing them both with a flash as if stretching before a fight. “Or are we gonna go save the world?” Bucky didn’t answer, just took off running in the direction of the screams. “That’s what I’m talking about,” said Sam to himself, shooting up into the air.

…

Robots. Drones. Whatever they, Bucky Barnes has decided that he hates them.

Fighting Nazis was easy. Not physically. Not when your gun isn’t really yours and the food sucks and you’re almost as worried about losing your toes as you are losing your team. But it made sense. These men in their wool coats wanted innocent deaths. Something in Bucky that had been there all along was born anew in the war. He was a protector. Of his sisters, of Steve, of his country. It made sense.

Nothing about Hydra made sense and the therapist he stopped seeing told him it was okay to think about those years differently than the rest. So he did.

When T’challa presented him with a black vibranium canon for his left side, the enemy was otherworldly. Literally. They didn’t bleed like men. They made horrible screeching noises when they died, but even that was different from me. They rode disgusting creatures with teeth that could have scratched his arm if he’d let them get close enough. They were invaders, their leader sought destruction on an even greater scale than the War. Bucky was a protector again, protector of Earth, of life in the universe. An unimaginable title for the boy he’d been, sitting in front of the radio with his family and marveling at the president's voice. It’s not like he was eager to do it again, but space invaders whose goal was universal genocide would be met with the business end of Bucky’s favorite rifle.

Fighting robots, however, was fucked up.

Bucky was still processing his new life, still getting used to the idea that people carried plastic cards in their wallets and could pull money out of the walls with just a few buttons. There were movie theaters with screens two stories high. Cars plugged into the sides of hotels. The cell phone in his pocket was overwhelming as is. In a few minutes, he could buy all the clothes he’d ever need, pay for dinner, and talk to people across the country. It was baffling.

All this technology, all this progress, and of course there were people who weaponized it. Bucky hated that. He remembered science fairs, remembered Howard Stark’s big promises. There was so much hope in him as a young man. He’d live to drive a flying car, his children would learn about the world through a holograms in their livingroom, his grandchildren would live on the moon. The possibilities were endless. So much so that people with horrible intentions for the world also believed that the possibilities were endless, forcing Bucky into his current position.

His thighs were wrapped around the base of a machine, arms wound near the top. He threw his shoulders back with all of his might, squeezing his legs in the process, and didn’t stop until the metal gave way. Bucky fell onto the pavement with his own momentum, the enemy in two pieces with wires exposed and frizzling as they died. He dropped the robot and rolled to his side, observing the scene around him. Steve used a cleaner approach and sent his shield flying through the air. Three more bots’ were sliced in two, the last of which was pinned by the shield into the side of a brick building. Sam circled above, with Redwing swooping below to draw laser fire away from bystanders while Wanda tried her best to herd them away, spinning to throw angry red energy at anything that came their direction.

“Sergeant Barnes!” The familiar and overly excited voice of the kid in blue and red spider gear startled Bucky. The kid swung in unexpectedly, decked out and ready to help. Bucky didn’t care that he was probably skipping school to do so and swung his vibranium arm behind him, the metal of another droid crunching under his elbow. “How can I help?”

Bucky squinted, a little dumbfounded at the question. There was a six block radius being overrun with droids, drones, robots- whatever- and people were terrified. “Pick something,” he grunted, taking the robot's head… top part, between his hands and twisting until it gave way and the bottom half dropped powerless to the ground.

Just then the sound of metal screeching pulled both their eyes to a city bus being thrown around like it was weightless, crunching the vehicles nearby, and sending more people into a frenzy as buildings were still evacuating onto the street. “That! Pick that!” Bucky commanded and the kid flew away, attached to a white string like a kite. Two more robots were approaching from the sidewalk, red eyes glowing and ready to fire. Bucky looked around the street for something, anything that he could use before deciding on a minivan. The windows looked clear, driver and passengers already scampering away at the first sign of trouble, so Bucky planted his boot into the back door and kicked. The door caved in and the vehicle flipped onto its side before skidding to a halt on the sidewalk and crushing the robots beneath it.

“Uh! MISTER BARNES, SIR, SARGE-!”

Bucky turned back to look at Peter, propped up on a light pole and leaning so far back his body was almost parallel to the ground. The only thing keeping him upright was the two thick white webs attached to the bus, one at the front and one at the back. It was tipping over dangerously low, trapping a small group of people between the bus and two buildings, one that had smoke billowing out the windows. This was a mess.

Bucky ran through the street, jumping onto the hoods of abandoned cars to avoid weaving between them before leaping off an SUV and rolling back into a run on the sidewalk. A laser struc Peter, knocking him clean off his perch, and the webs supporting the bus went dangerously slack as it started tipping toward the trapped people again. Bucky jumped, wedging himself between the building and the collapsing bus with great effort. His shoulders dug into the brick behind him and his thighs burned as he shoved the bus away from the wall, gritting his teeth as he felt it slowly start to tip away from the ground. The kid was now on the ground somewhere out of sight and Bucky had to hold back from sending the vehicle flying, lest he squash Stark’s favorite spider in the process. The tension in his legs grew as he held it steady, adjusting his feet and shoulders until he felt it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Hey!” He called out to the people below him. “Get out of here, go!”

There were rushed thank yous and lots of tears as the crowd dispersed from their trapped position. But one voice stood out among them and it made Bucky’s heart speed up.

“Bucky?! Oh my god, BUCKY!”

Bucky’s eyes were closed under the strain, but he’d know your voice anywhere. He opened them just in time to see Peter recover and zip off in a new direction. Bucky released his breath and shoved his feet out hard, tipping the bus back. He dropped from the wall and grabbed you as the bus wobbled precariously in both directions before finally falling into traffic and directly onto the roof of an empty red sports car.

Bucky hadn’t realized how tight he was holding you until you said his name again and the word was broken. His arms relaxed a bit, but you made no move to run away… or let go of his jacket. The two of you just stared at each other, breathing heavily, before screaming drew your eyes away. The small crowd of people you’d been stuck with were running away from where you stood, but the two in the back collapsed, their bodies charred and heavy as they hit the ground. You screamed then and Bucky pulled your back into his chest, hugging your stomach as you keeled over. He’d seen so much death in his hundred odd years, it was hard to witness it with these fresh eyes. You weren’t prepared to watch two innocent people’s skin melting under lasers. Hell, neither was Bucky and while you cried in his arms, the smell of burning flesh stung his eyes. He’d never get over that smell, no matter how many world wars he participated in. His face was buried in the back of your head, shushing you as he lifted you up. He took careful backwards steps until you were both hidden in the same alley you’d just been trapped in. Bucky looked up at the burning building and decided he had a minute before you were both in danger here.

“Hey,” he said softly when you went limp against his chest. “Hey now,” he repeated, spinning and almost dropping you when he realized you hadn’t just relaxed… you were unconscious. “Shit,” Bucky dropped to his knees and let your body lean up against his chest, slapping at your cheeks and calling your name to try and wake you up. Half of your face was red with blood from a wound he couldn’t see somewhere in your hair. Break up or no break up, he couldn’t leave you like this. Any other person, he’d run them to safety and double back to continue clearing the streets. But this wasn’t any person. It was the girl he dumped in the middle of a restaurant and had continuously put off calling to explain himself. He hadn’t gotten the chance to clear the air and leaving you to wake up in a few hours in the middle of a destroyed midtown was just too cruel. He did like you and now it felt like he owed you.

Bucky picked you up like a doll and slung you around to his back, crossing your arms over his chest as your legs dangled behind his knees. That wasn’t going to work, he decided after only a few steps. “Can you hold on a little-“ Bucky drifted off as he turned his face to see your face hidden behind him, your forehead limply resting against his shoulder. “Of course not,” he berated himself and stopped to adjust again. This time he stooped, grabbing one of your arms and one of your legs with his hands. You were slung over his shoulders like a backpack, the same way he carried goats in Wakanda, only much easier since you weren’t kicking or screaming and he had two hands with which to wrangle you.

His steady march out of the fray was interrupted once by Wanda. After directing pockets of people to safety, she’d sought out the source of the invasion. Bucky looked around for a safe place to stow your body and found an SUV that was abandoned but still running with the doors unlocked to lay you out across the backseat, carefully tucking your feet in before slamming the door behind him. He liked Wanda, despite not knowing what exactly she was capable of, but liked her a lot less when he found himself immersed in a glowing red forcefield and being lifted into the sky. When he was forced through the large glass window of another building only to look up and find her floating gently through the hole his body had created, she shrugged.

“This way was faster,” she said, Sokovian accent much softer than their first meeting.

“Right,” Bucky groaned, making a mental note of how many Avengers could zip through the air with ease and the odds of being the one she found on the ground.

They raced up the final set of stairs and Bucky ripped the maintenance door to the roof off its hinges. It was unlucky that Bucky and Wanda had been the ones to find the bastard responsible. If it had been Steve, he’d been bound and handed over to the authorities. Tony might have thrown him in armored vehicle and shook him around a bit before demanding answers. Bruce… depending on the day wouldn’t have been much better. Nat would have gotten answers easier than either of them and Sam was easily the most noble of the bunch, so Bucky had no idea what he’d do. The right thing, whatever that was. But Wanda wasn’t particularly fond of people who harmed innocent people. The motivation didn’t much matter to her when the sounds of children crying could be heard in the streets. Bucky didn’t have much grace for people who were smart enough to help, but broken enough to hurt. Like the bastards in Hydra, who healed him, kept him alive, gave him extraordinary strength then weaponized him. Anyone who had this level of technological advancement and chose to bring destruction with it was a waste of air. Wanda hoisted the man up into one of her angry red orbs while Bucky broke the control panel into as many pieces as he could, destroying anyone else’s opportunity to learn from this guy. Neither of them had anticipated this guy to be so well armed. It looked like a pistol, but whatever it fired managed to get through Wanda’s energy field and pierce her shoulder, breaking her focus just enough for him to drop back onto the roof. He took off running to the edge and leapt, but Wanda recovered faster, using her powers to yank him back. Bucky caught him in the air and squeezed, locking the man in a painful hold until he noticed glowing red numbers counting down behind the man’s neck. Shit.

“Bucky!” Wanda pointed at the man’s hands, wrapped threateningly around a plunger that could only mean one thing.

Without a better option, Bucky turned back to edge. He released the man and as he tried to stumble forward, Bucky’s boot landed square against his sacrum, launching the man through the air and into a neighboring building in a ball of fire. Both Avengers watched the corner offices go up in flames, disgust and horror in both their eyes.

“The whole block was evacuated,” Wanda said softly and Bucky nodded. There was a distinct lack of screaming coming from the direction of the building and sirens soon flooded the streets below as first responders made their way into critical areas. From the ledge, both of them watched as the remaining bots dropped to the ground before their team, disengaging en masse. Steve looked up from atop a bodega and saluted the sky in their general direction, lifting the shield as a second acknowledgment before jumping down to the street to start… whatever Captain America does once the threat has been neutralized. The PR and clean up stuff wasn’t Bucky’s scene and he turned away, making it all the way across the roof, still observing the scene below, before remembering that you were somewhere, either still unconscious or just waking up, deeply confused in the back of a stranger’s car.

“You okay?” Bucky asked, wanting to make sure before asking Wanda for any favors.

She pulled her hand away from her shoulder, black nail polish and red blood looking menacing and downright witchy against her pale fingers. “I’ll be alright,” she assured him, eyes already glowing red as she prepared to offer more aid.

Bucky stopped her and nodded over the side of the building. “Gimme a lift?”

She snorted and waved her fingers without looking at him and soon enough, Bucky found himself falling on his ass once again. He needed to work on his dismount if this was going to become a regular pairing. Thankfully or maybe not, you were trying to wake up as Bucky slipped into the driver’s seat and commandeered the vehicle. He turned back to watch you whine in pain as you tried to sit up, before slipping back into sleep when he told you to stay down. You were in and out for most of the drive, which helped Bucky weave up and over curbs to avoid stagnant areas where everyone had abandoned their cars out of fear.

…

You woke up with a headache, exasperated by the bright lights of the emergency room. Bucky could see the moment you came to by the hard squinting that melted into a grimace. You’d had a couple false starts, but when your eyes opened and locked on his, Bucky knew it was the real deal this time. He stood to pull back the curtain and immediately a nurse was shimmying her way into your space, brushing her chest against Bucky’s in the process. He nodded and gave her a tight smile. It had been like that since he walked into the ER with you. Avengers carrying blacked out civilians get a lot of attention, but they also get speedy service. Which is what Bucky told himself when he stuck around once you’d been admitted. You’d get better care if he stayed with you, so he did. Feet propped up on the end of your bed and dropping whenever someone came to run another test. He wasn’t family and didn’t claim to be, so they told him nothing, but nurses managed to smile flirtatiously in between doing their job. In another life, Bucky would have… done something. Anything. He smiled. He was a hundred, not dead, but there was something off putting about receiving these looks when you were asleep right there between hanging curtains in an overrun hospital as ambulances and families started to arrive from the mess he’d just left.

You answered their questions slowly, but correctly. Your name, where you were, what year it is, who the president is. The doctor would be in soon and Bucky took the minute of alone time to scoot the chair they’d brought in for him. You were watching him expectantly as the legs scraped across the floor, just a few inches before he could reach a hand out to yours. You looked down curiously at your hand in Bucky’s.

“They spelled my name wrong,” you murmured and Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut as you lifted your joined hands to observe the little plastic bracelet closer. He shook his head, wanting to apologize, but also hoping you wouldn’t connect the dots that he’d given them your information incorrectly. “Bucky?” He looked up to find your eyes wider than usual, a little more vulnerable than he was used to seeing you and wanted to do something to make you feel better. But like the entirety of your relationship, he had no idea how to do that.

“You’re okay,” he nodded, telling himself as much as he was telling you.

“Thank you,” you squeezed his fingers as your voice shook.

Just then a man in a white coat, pushed back the curtain and Bucky stood reflexively, dropping your hand in the process. He turned back and saw your face fall before crossing your arms over your chest and looking away from him.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the doctor addressed him first.

“Bucky,” he corrected without thinking and turned his body, opening up the room a bit and directing attention back to what mattered. The patient. You.

“Thank you for bringing her in,” the doctor continued, then looked back and forth between the two of you. “We’ve got it from here, if you need to-”

“He can stay,” you piped up. The doctor asked if you were sure, but you were. The doctor nodded, turning fully toward the bed and while that was Bucky’s goal, he now felt completely out of place in the tiny space.

“First things first,” the doctor started. “You and the baby are just fine, so I don’t want you worrying about that at all. Do you have a OB or a-”

Bucky stopped listening at that moment and focused on the roaring ocean in his ears. He looked to the bed where you were listening intently to what the doctor was saying, nodding and shaking your head mechanically. While he stared, you stole a glance in his direction. Your face was blank and he didn’t spend much time trying to read it.

“This sounds personal,” he said, voice flat and vibranium hand already reaching for the curtain at the end of your bed. “Take care.” Without sparing another look, Bucky walked through the busy emergency room with his left hand tucked into his front pocket, making him invisible to anyone who didn’t know he was there.

A/N: Here we go! It’s happening. I’m not sold on the way this ended but it was getting long as is and don’t worry, Bucky will have his chance to make it up to you.

Tags: @fangirl-swagg @learisa

[ssa-daddyhotchner]

Undercover - Chapter 22

Chapter Selection

After Spencer’s realization there were no new connections, thoughts, nothing. We were all stuck on a single thought. 'I have something to do with all of this.'  

"There's another body", an officer peaked through the door and all of us gathered and left for the most recent crime scene. It was close by to the station almost like Mark knew we were catching on, he always was a cocky asshole.

It was in a cozy neighborhood, yet again the victim shared an uncanny resemblance to me. Half of us were dodging all of the CSI workers as they secured the scene to make sure it wasn't contaminated. The woman was bound to her bed, again with deep slashing running down her bad.

I subconsciously touched my scars only stopping when I felt Aarons hand go to my lower back. The blood was collecting in the wound, "Cuts were anti mortem."

"He wanted them to feel everything", Spencer spoke. There was something that didn't feel right at the moment. This kill for some reason gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I rushed out the room and went outside and threw up.

I turned feeling a hand on my back, Morgan had followed me out. "You wanna talk about it."

"Not right now", there was a hint of disappointment but he wasn't going to make this about him. "Derek something some thing doesn't feel right about that." I pointed to the house.

"I know I have the same thought", he nodded and waited for me to get back together before walking back inside.  

We rejoined the group inside the house on the first floor. Something urged me to turn around and when I did I saw a note poking out of one a drawer.

I opened it and the note had my name on it:

The one was very special to me... she reminds me so much of you

In more ways than you think

Reading the note brought a bad taste to my mouth. The team noticed me at the desk and walked over, "What'd you find?" I folded the note and gave it to Aaron, "I don't know yet."

The corner took the body and we waited for the ME to look at the body and give us a report. We all returned to the station sitting in the same room. There was a darkness over every single one of us for some reason; they all could feel it.

Hours went by, we decided to call it. Heading to the hotel; until the ME got back to us we could form anymore theories to get the case closed.

I got in the car with Aaron, he took his time driving us back. I wanted to enjoy the slim time of peace that I had at the moment. Soft music playing in the background, I stared out the window looking at the passing street lamps and people walking minding their business.

We arrived at the hotel, none of us saying a word. Going to our separate rooms, There was a wrapped box at our door, addressed to me. Aaron put his around me, pulling me back and calling everyone. He wasn't taking the chance, if there was a bomb.

He had the bomb squad there in 10 minutes. They carefully unwrapped the paper and made cautious cuts at the tape on the box. Unfolding it they were met with another fucking note. What the hell is his obsession with that.

There was something else in there, it was a toy train; one a baby would play with. The bomb squad cleared it and let us near. I got my hands on the note

I'll give you a hint

It clicked in my mind, the latest victim was pregnant. The team surrounded me and stared, I never told them about that. They knew Mark wouldn't mess up like that, he planned everything out. Emily looked down, avoiding my eyes.

Not saying anything I watched as their forms disappeared from my view; they walked away to their rooms. Everything was moving in slow motion, Aaron gently gripping my wrist pulling me into the room.

I changed and got under the covers. Aaron pulled me close, keeping me warm from the winter weather.

I woke up to my phone ringing next to me. I wiggled out of Aarons grip and answered, "What Garcia."

"I figured you guys might wanna see this before I-- uh say anything to everyone else." I tapped Aaron and he stirred, finally sitting up next to me. Garcia shared her screen, "I haven't looked past the first photo, they seem-- invasive."

Our eyes opened wide, when she sent the photos, and a video to me.

They were pictures of Aaron pinning me to the wall, hovering over me laying kisses on my neck, me cuffed to the bed. The video was even worse, it showed very clearly Aaron pounding into me after I moved it. A full view of everything.

"That son of a bitch was there after you guys left." Aaron was livid, if Mark had these he could expose us to Strauss. Garcia tried to trace them but untimely came up empty. "Can you delete these."

She nodded, "I can try and with all the copies I can but I don't know if I can get all of them." We finished up and ended the conversation. I let my head fall into my hands.

"What are we going to do if Strauss finds out." He was trying to think of a way we wouldn't get transferred or fired. There was a way that I thought of, but if that was forced on me it would go well.

"If we're engaged or married, it's the same thing. I don't wanna sign a relationship form formally to HR cause they'd put us through legal hoops and I don't have the energy for that."  

Neither did I, "I don't wanna rush this, I feel that- if you're forced to marry me then you won't wanna be with me anymore. That you'll regret it at some point." He turned to me, gripping my thighs and pulling me onto his lap. He pulled my arms over his neck.

"Now why would you think that, how about I 'propose' if she finds out and later I can actually do it... formally."

I pressed my lips to his, "I'd love that. Just know I don't like huge gestures." Ruining the moment like always the phone started ringing. "Hotchner", his face went from smiling to cold then sad.

I raised his eyebrows, he put the phone on speaker. "The last victim was pregnant, y/n is there something you need to tell us?" Everything was moving fast, I was getting too much information at once.

Learning the woman was pregnant and killed because of me, the photos and video of Aaron and I, the thought of Strauss finding out about the relationship; now the team is looking for answers in my personal life.

It was like being buried alive, my chest started feeling tight and I couldn't breath. I hated panic attacks; they made me feel small and weak. It was already starting and there wasn't much to stop it. Aaron noticed and held me close to him.

Trying to stop it before it got too bad, he pushed his lips to mine; focusing my mind on one thing at a time. At the moment all I could think about was his lips against mine. I held him there for a time before pulling away.

"Baby you need to calm down, one thing at a time... okay", starting the routine all over again, we got ready for another day at the station. if we didn't get close to closing the case soon, the Bureau would call us back.

__________________

Mark was going over the next thing he was planning, he called the doctor's office to see if he could get an update on the baby. When he called he was something he didn't want to hear.

Y/n had done something that he thought she'd never do, get rid of her baby. He always thought she was perfect to carry his child, he was wrong.

"She took away my child, I'm going to take away hers", he muttered to himself; Mark was getting angrier by the second.

____________________

"Y/n...", Aaron was calling out to me and shaking my arm. When I opened my eyes Aaron was already ready for work. Another day of trying to get this bastard; he has us running in circles at least he had me running in circles.

It was like trying to catch a shadow, as so as you think you're getting close it moves with you. I dragged myself out of bed and got ready, eating leftovers and drinking yesterday's coffee.

I wasn't focused on the case, but what the team thought about the last victim. They knew she was pregnant and so far every kill had something to do with me and this was a big part of that. As Aaron and I walked through the doors all eyes were on us.

Everyone stared even the officers outside of the case; they knew something bigger was happening. The team stared as I went into the conference room, I could feel it... the tension. The desire to ask that one burning question we knew they all had.

No one spoke. Aaron sat next to me, holding my hand under the table and squeezing reassuringly. "Y/n... you're gonna have to tell us everything if we're going to have a complete profile on Mark."

Rossi broke the silence and I kept my gaze on the table. Only Aaron and Emily knew about the baby and that was... not a good time in my life considering. I pushed my urge to run out of the room deep down.

"When we were on vacation, I was walking home from the club and... Mark had followed me there. He assaulted me and I got pregnant. I didn't find out till a month later and I decided to not keep it... obviously. His goal was to get me pregnant."

I was practically numb to it at this point... I never went to a therapist like I had promised but instead talked to Aaron about it. He helped me through it the way he knew how, he didn't pretend to know what it was like; he processed everything and listened.

I scanned everyone's faces and they all looked hurt. They were all upset I didn't tell them the personal things in my life. "We could've helped you", I shook my head.

"That's not your responsibility-- we have a job to do and I didn't want all of your focus on me." If they were all worried about me they wouldn't pay attention to the next unsub.  

"Y/n, to do our job we need to make sure everyone is okay, I need to make sure everyone's okay." I let out a quiet I know. JJ was staring at me like she was trying to find a way to fix me, in a motherly way if that makes sense.

She lost a baby before; it's not the same because I chose to get rid of it but she sort of understood. Losing a baby, despite it being unwanted it still hurt in a sense.

___________________________

We were in Maryland for the next three days and no new body dropped. The case went cold and we were called back to Quantico. Driving back I was with Aaron, "When's Jack coming back."

"Jessica will be there when we get home." I smiled to myself. The ride went faster than I thought. One second we were leaving the precinct and the next we were back home. I opened the door and was met with someone jumping into my arms.

Jessica was on the couch, "I'll leave you too it."

"Thank you... really", Aaron walked Jessica out and he locked the door. "Do you wanna say hi to your dad." Jack never left my arms; he clung on, Aaron walked over to me and Jack reached out into his arms.

"Hey buddy, you ready for school tomorrow." That wiped the smile off his face, "No, the teacher said we're learning something new." I walked into our bedroom, changed out of the uncomfortable work clothes and collapsed on the bed, I heard the Hotchner boys conversation faintly through the door.

Aaron was talking about school, what they did while we were gone and how he was still making friends. I don't remember when but I had fallen asleep.

"Y/n!", Aaron calling my name pulled me out of my heavy sleep, I wandered into the living room wearing one of Aaron's hoodies. He had made food and was getting ready to put jack to bed.

When dinner was finished Jack was yawning and I knew he was ready for bed. I stood from my seat and held out my hand, he grabbed onto it and I brought him down the hallway and to his bed. Aaron followed us and he watched me tuck him in the blankets.

"Can you take me to school tomorrow?", I moved his hair off his face and kissed his forehead.

"Course buddy, make sure to wake up extra early and I can also make you a special breakfast." He grinned and nodded falling asleep in time. I waited for him to be fully knocked out before leaving the room and quietly shutting the door.

When I closed the door Aaron turned me around and backed me up against the wall, "You're so good with him you know that right. You're gonna be a great mom."

I brought my hand and combed through his hair, "Well it's nice to have reassurance." He smirked and tugged on my arms bringing us down the hallway to sleep. He got undressed and got under the covers, I slipped in after him and he held me tightly.

"Forgot to ask... do I get any of this 'special breakfast'." I shrugged, pulling his arms around me tighter.

"Depends", he playfully nudged me and we drifted off.

_____________________

I felt something dip into the bed and start bouncing, heard laughter and something pushing into my shoulder.

"Come on you got to wake her up", Aaron whispered to Jack. They didn't know that I was already up, I heard the breathing of Jack behind me and before he made his move I turned around and grabbed him.

I started ticking him, a playful scream filling the room with the laughter of Aaron and I. When I stopped he collected himself and sat on his knees gazing at me.

"Get ready for school and I make that breakfast." He squealed and crawled off the bed running down the hallway.

I turned my attention to Aaron who was gazing at the event that took place. "Sir, you have work to get to in an hour... you got to get ready." He leaned forwards pressing a soft kiss to my lips,

"Yes ma'am."

As the boys were getting ready for their days I walked into the kitchen and pulled out my ingredients. Grabbing the milk, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, and bread. I set them on the counter and started the coffee.

Jack was the first to be ready and took a seat at the table. He waited patiently as he watched me make his food. Giving him two slices of French toast; he devoured it. Aaron was finally done and I served him breakfast.

He said thank you and like father like son, he also inhaled his food. I cleaned up the remains of the breakfast and got ready for work last. We got into our separate cars and I set a course for school. Seeing I had time, I decided to take the slightly longer way.

Jack was observing the outside, "Watch out!" I didn't understand what Jack was talking about until it was too late. There was a truck headed towards the car, slamming into the rear end.

Before I knew it the car was tumbling; I got knocked out and when I came too I was upside-down. My vision was fading in and out and my ears were ringing, I made out trees and wet grass.

I was able to unbuckle my seatbelt and turn around- Jack was gone and I didn't see a trace of him anywhere. No blood, clothes... just nothing. I stumbled out of the car and made my way to the road. Seeing a car drive passed, what I did get was a clear view of the driver... Mark.

I don't remember anything after that but feeling like I was underwater and falling into the grass. Faintly I heard sirens and the feeling of being dragged. I opened my eyes enough to see a paramedic, and being in a stretcher.

___________________

@wanniiieeee @appleblossoms-posts @oreogutz @mac99martin @marie1115 @donttellanyoneireadfanfiction @errorcosplay67

[kitesatforestp]

Beauty and the Beast

Okay so I might have written my first story👀

“Erik, why don’t you want Kaya to have a car?” Jamil asked.

The brown couch I sat on was cozy, the pillows filled with various flowers and Que dog symbols. The pillow I got him for his Founder’s Day was one I was holding now, a memory of happy times. A picture of his family, him and his wife, stood beside the neutral purple chair he sat in.

I had that once, too.

And yet you excitingly ruined it, and all to have bragging rights of breaking a girl’s back and still “having it”, isn’t that right, he goaded. These days all Kill ever did was taunt me.

She could hurt herself, her brother is the better driver, I can drive her, she gonna try and sneak boys and girls in her car-, my thoughts were cut off.

Jamil already knew the answer to his question.

“Erik-,” he started but I cut him off.

“If Kaya gets a car then I won’t see her anymore.”

Flashes of heels, dressers that rocked as if there weren’t two peoples’ clothes in them, and tears, so many tears raced past my mind. Fast, too fast. Over the past ten years I’ve had so many times where I almost forgot the last moment her and I had where I had access to her, even if it was just her despondency. Her amusement. Me on my knees amused her, though it broke the heart of our children who watched. A moment I wrote down, down to the color and time of day to remember. The only torture I ever thought I deserved.

I watched patience settle over Jamil’s face, and I almost smiled. This was something I knew I would never lose.

“Is this the part where you tell me I need to move on?” I implored my therapist.

“Yes, right before you tell me you have and you are just actively choosing to love her anyway,” he patiently responded. His response was exactly what I’d expected, and yet still it gave me no peace. Peace was foreign in every way and had been for a while.

��Erik. I want you to be honest. Have you been following our plan? Taking up hobbies, constantly checking yourself on why you enjoy these hobbies?” he asked to which I nodded my head.

I thought about the paintings I had in my home. The set of drums in the music room. Robots scattered in my office. An office that held pictures from a wedding and a few first dates. The music room that held the videos filled with “I love you’s” and “forevers” that fell short yet seems to fill me to this moment.  

“Doc can I ask you something?” I inquired to which he nodded his head.

“Was it ever possible that we would work out? With all the trauma I had, was I always going to self-destruct? Run away?” I asked. This question had been asked before, but my thoughts on it had changed. “Is that a black people thing, that we don’t get to rest and be easy, even with the people we love?” I pressed on, not waiting for his response.

Jamil tilted his head to me. He understood my fears, as I had been struggling for a minute now. Every session was about Kaya wanting a car, and every session I had told him over and over that I didn’t want her to have one because I didn’t want her to drive off and not look back.

Jamil was perceptive and did not give me a reprieve. He stared into my eyes and looked back at his family pictures my eyes kept flickering to. His eyes turned sad and unwilling, but he had nothing to worry about. Nothing could break my heart. It was still in shredded pieces on the floor of my dining room, still pumping after collecting ten years of tears.

“Erik, you don’t want Kaya to have a car because drop-off’s are the only time you have contact with your ex-wife,” he stated bluntly.

I stared back. It amused me that he believed I had no idea of this. This cat and mouse game him and played over this topic went round-and-round. This statement still, however, squeezed my heart. Jamil became blurry and something hot rushed down my face.

I cried for the remaining session.

[theonewiththefanfics]

Touch (one-shot)

Synopsys: There was a time Bucky hated touch. He hated to be touched and to touch. Not anymore. Now things are different. And as the snow slowly covers New York, Bucky thinks of how he got to that point.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!Reader

Genre: fluffffff, lil bit of angst as insecure and guilty Bucky

Warnings: swearing, suggestive stuff, Bucky feelin low at points and insecure (yes, that is a fucking warning)

Word count: 5517

Bucky loved touch.

          He used to hate it, given how any time for the past seventy years touch meant harm, excruciating pain and torture. And not just it being inflicted upon him by his captors. Sometimes he was on the delivering end.

         But he loved it now, just like he loved the early mornings of New York when the city still somewhat slept, and he could just watch the twinkling lights flicker through the pale curtains. 

         Now, everything was covered in a layer of snow. The sky looked lighter, despite the fact that it was 5 AM, but each flake reflected the beams of the city, encasing it in a warm white blanket.

         He loved the touch of snow. It was cold, but not an angry cold. It was the kind of cold that reminded him of her feet stuck under his back in the middle of the night or the kind of cold that he felt on his lips as he leaned down to kiss her frigid nose. It was a safe cold. A loving one.

         It hadn’t come easy though – getting to the point where he didn’t wince when someone clapped on his shoulder, or be the one to seek out someone’s hand, let alone initiate a hug or bring her in for a kiss. 

         It was Tony’s funeral of all places where everything had started. Sam was talking with Steve as his best friend passed on the mantle of Captain America. In a way, Bucky was glad it hadn’t been him. He didn’t feel like he deserved it, nor did he feel like he could carry such amount of responsibility. Not then at least.

          He turned around, head tilted downwards as he watched pine needles crunch under his feet when another pair came in view. Bucky instantly recognised her.

          Y/E/C eyes met his blue ones, and although there wasn’t much physical resemblance of her father, Y/N carried herself in the same suave way, and her gaze always glinted with knowledge and mischief. Now her eyes were rimmed with red.

          “I uh,” she started before clearing her throat. “I wanted to say thank you for coming. He’d… he would’ve really appreciated it.”

          Bucky almost choked on the sudden tears, and he shook his head. Throughout the whole funeral, he’d barely kept it together, as waves and waves of guilt rolled around. “Y/N, I don’t think anyone would want the murderer of their paren-“

          She shook her head in dismissal not letting him finish the sentence. “He forgave you. A long time ago. In fact, I don’t think you were the one that hurt him the most. Dad was a lot of things… but despite what many believe, when he found out he was wrong, it wasn’t hard for him to admit it.”

          Bucky swallowed hard. He should be on his knees begging for forgiveness and mercy, he should be begging her to believe how truly and utterly sorry he was. 

          “I’m so sorry.” He couldn’t come up with anything else. Because there was nothing else to say. Nothing he’d do would ever bring Tony back, and nothing he’d say would ever bring Tony back. He was just stuck in a loop of grief, guilt and sorrow, and would never get out of it.

          Maybe that’s what he deserved, Bucky thought to himself, maybe that was his punishment for Tony sacrificing his life only so he could live.

          “Anyway, I found this while going through his stuff…” Y/N handed him a little flash drive taking Bucky out of that wallowing pit. “I really think you need to see it.”

          Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed, and he looked at Y/N as she wiped away tears. “What’s on it?”

          She shook her head. “It's not my place to tell,” and gently she took Bucky’s still open palm and closed his fingers around the little device. “Please,” Y/N sniffled looking from their clasped hands back up at him and gave Bucky a tight smile. “Don’t be a stranger. I’d love to get to know you.”

          And then she left. Her black trench coat billowed around her in the soft spring wind. He watched as she picked her sister up in her arms, and Morgan’s little legs and hands wrapped around Y/N in a secure hug. Brown eyes met Bucky, and a little hand raised in a wave. He waved right back.

          That night he went to the hotel the Stark’s had so generously placed everyone who had been decimated and newly brought back or who had arrived at Tony’s memorial. Most of them didn't have a place to stay. Bucky was one of them.

          He felt Sam approach before his strong hand clapped on his right shoulder. 

          “You gonna be okay?”

          Bucky nodded. “It’s just been a long day.”

          A deep hearty chuckle, that had an underlying layer of exhaustion reverberated through the quiet hallway. “You can say that… If you need anything just knock. I’ll probably be up until whenever…”

          Sam wasn’t one to really talk about his emotions, but Bucky knew he felt just as much guilt as he did. Maybe not as much, but he could see that emotions and words left unsaid, weighed on his friend’s shoulders. 

          Sam's door clicked shut, and only then did Bucky turn to his own, swiping the key card, and letting the small happy beep announce that it was open. He stripped off his jacket, combat boots and jeans. Unlike Y/N, he didn’t think Tony would have wanted him there, that’s why he wasn’t in a suit. It had been a last-minute decision when he realized there would never be a time, he’d be able to apologize to the billionaire. Not anymore. So, the least he could do was show respect by supporting the people he’d loved more than anything. 

          In a black tank top and boxers, Bucky plopped down onto the hotel bed and sighed, looking up at the ceiling. For a good couple of minutes, he stared at it, trying to find answers to unanswerable questions, but once he figured, unless the walls started talking there would be none, he grabbed the jacket and pulled out the flash drive Y/N had given him. 

          Not only had the whole Stark family been generous enough to grant him a place to stay until they figured out further accommodations, but they’d also given him anything he wanted or needed. A computer had been one of the things. He hadn’t requested it, but Pepper refused him refusing. 

          “If only to quench the boredom,” the redhead has smiled and slipped the slim rectangle in his hands along with a phone, credit card and a notebook. The last thing was already almost half-filled. 

          There was no password necessary as the computer camera scanned his facial features and granted him access. He plugged the flash drive in. Only one file resided on it.

          With bated breath, he clicked on it. The second he saw Tony, Bucky sat up straighter.

          “Hey… Hi… Bucky… I don’t know if you’ll ever see this because… well, because you’re dead,” Tony let out a bitter chuckle. “And I should be happy about it. I feel like I should. But I’m not. I’m not happy about any of this. There’s not much to celebrate nowadays." There was a slight pause as Tony bit his lip and smiled. It looked like he almost didn't want to, but he couldn't help himself. In a moment, Bucky understood why.

          “My daughter was born today. My second kiddo. Her name’s Morgan… probably the greatest day of my life… it would be the second greatest had I been able to see Y/N be born, but I gotta do with what I’m given.” 

          He shook his head and waved a hand around, “I guess that’s why I’m making this. Also, because my therapist said it might help, but I think it’s because of what happened today… I don’t want to live with all of this weighing on me. Ever since that whole thing in Siberia, this has been the one thing on my mind I haven’t been able to push away into some dark corner with the rest of my problems…” he looked up at the camera as if he could see Bucky. “You can’t blame me for how I reacted. You can’t tell me that I was wrong in how I dealt with everything… but you can tell me that I should’ve given you a bit of time to explain yourself.

          I know this will sound like an excuse, but the only thing I was thinking was – he already took away the people I love, so I won’t let him take what little I’ve got left… I know how unfair it is… was… but I hope you understand…”

          Bucky let a tear freely flow over his scruffy cheek as he nodded. He did. He’d do the same if he had a family. Without. A. Question.

          “But here’s the thing,” Tony sighed and looked to the side. “I can’t change the past… not what happened with my parents, not what happened with Thanos… I can’t do anything to bring you all back. And then I started thinking – what if I could go back far enough that I could save you?”

          The super-soldier almost felt his heart stop at the thought of Tony risking his life just to save his. 

          “What if I was able to save you before any of this happened? And I pondered it for quite a while. All of those what-ifs and such… and I came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t. And I know it sounds horrible, but here’s the thing, if I did – I wouldn’t have become the man I am today. There would be no Iron Man, no Stark Industries as they are now, and I wouldn’t have Pep or Y/N or now Morgan… I would've never have become an Avenger if things were even remotely different. I’m not saying it’s easy to come to the terms that it wasn’t you who did that… but I’m saying that every single piece has led me to where I am now. And that also includes you. And if you’re even a little bit like me, which from dad’s stories, I think you are, I know how you’re feeling, so I just want you to know that I forgive you, Bucky. For everything. I read some of your file and yeah…” he dragged a hand down his face. “Fuck man… I get it… I understand it…”

          Bucky could see in Tony’s face that he truly did understand. He had been kidnapped and held captive as well. He knew what it was like to do things against his own will and be betrayed by humanity. Hell, he had been betrayed by someone he had considered family.

          “And I want you to know I’m sorry too. It’s hard. Knowing everything you ever thought is a lie. I blamed my dad for most of my life for what happened when instead I should’ve been blaming someone else... HYDRA fucked us both over, didn’t they?” 

          Bucky choked back a sob. “Yeah, they did.”

          The high-pitched wail of a child cut through Tony’s words, and he looked at the camera with a soft and genuine smile. “I gotta go, Maguna’s calling. But yeah… I guess that’s all I wanted to say. But if I could ask of you one thing – if you’re watching this, most likely I’m not there to tell this to you in person, so just… take care of them, please. My girls. They’re the one thing in this world that I have left.” And with a delicate smile Tony said ‘bye’, and the screen turned to black.

          Bucky cried that night and the following morning. He curled up in his bed and sobbed until he couldn’t breathe, and then he took a warm bath and cried some more with his knees pulled up to his chest and hands in his hair. 

          That day he cut the long tresses off. It was sloppy and uneven, but it felt good. Like he was letting go of all of the guilt and pain, and he was finally forgiving himself. Sam wasn’t half bad at evening everything out. 

          That same day he went over to the lake house Pep and Morgan still resided in. As did Y/N.

          “She’s in the basement,” Pepper nodded towards a set of stairs and readjusted how her daughter sat on her hip. “She’s been working on one of Tony’s unused patents. Something with nanotech and neurology.”

          “Smart girl,” he mumbled and tickled the little sock-clad feet of Morgan, who giggled and tucked her face in her mother’s hair. 

          Pep laughed and patted Morgan's back. “Just like her dad. Hasn’t even taken a break since last night… would you be so kind and maybe bring her lunch? I just made some lasagna, which you’re more than welcome to as well.”

          Without a second to spare, Bucky plated some food, ready to bring Y/N the much-needed fuel. He would’ve left without taking a bite for himself, but Pepper’s disapproving gaze told him he didn’t have a choice. 

          “No, DUM-E!” he heard her exclaim as he balanced the two portions in his hands. “Fuck, why do you even have that function? You do that again, and I’ll donate you to a community college. Dad didn’t go through with it, but I will; mark my words!”

          Metal elbow knocked against the glass door, and it made her spin around.

          “Sorry for interrupting,” Bucky apologized in a quiet voice. Rock music had been turned on a low hum, and goggles sat perched on Y/N’s nose before she removed them and beckoned him inside not even glancing in his direction. He heard the band sing something about teenagers and having the living shit scared out of them by them. He chuckled, thinking that teenagers were the least horrifying things on the planet.

          “Don’t worry. It’s not something that can’t wait a bit,” she pulled off two heavy-set gloves and threw them onto the table, and immediately stumbled back a bit as her eyes befell on Bucky. “Sorry, I just... you look very different without the uh,” she waved at his head.

          “Yeah, I uh, cut it off.”

          Y/N snorted and turned back to whatever she had been fixing, pushing a piece of paper away. “I noticed. Oh, shit, sorry,” she motioned to how he was still holding the food and took one of the plates. “You made this?”

          “Uh, no. Pepper did. Said you hadn’t eaten in ages and asked to bring you down something.”

          She rolled her eyes but gave him a small smile as a thanks and put the plate on the table. “I’m not that bad. I just got carried away.”

          He did it without a warning. Bucky just stepped forward as she rambled on about finding some clean forks when he grabbed her by the writs and pulled the woman in his chest. It was the first time he made the first move to hug someone. He pulled Y/N against him and pressed his face in the crook of her neck, muttering never-ending apologies and promises to keep her, Morgan and Pep safe just as her father had asked him to do. She didn’t respond, just wove her own hands around his shoulders and soothed him until he could form a coherent sentence.

         Thumbs roughened by battles she should've never been involved in and manual labor because, just like Tony, she always had to be tinkering with something, wiped away tears. “It’s okay,” Y/N whispered. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

         He pulled in a shuddering breath. “I just needed you to know.”

         “I do,” Y/N smiled at him. “And so does he. Now… food?”

         After that, he really kept his promise. He didn’t have any external threats to really worry about that could harm Y/N, Pep or Morgan, but Tony’s eldest daughter could be a menace to herself, so Bucky was sure to supply her with water and food and overall company.

         They talked about everything under the Sun. Mostly everything beyond the Sun, as he was a huge space nerd, and even in her contacts Y/N had named him ‘Bonky-the-space-Boi’. He’d be lying if he said his heart didn’t flutter every time she sent him a meme or a NASA article while sitting right beside him. 

         “Maybe you could ask Carol to take you with her when she visits next,” Y/N suggested, chowing down on some duck gyoza and soy sauce. “See the universe for yourself.”

         And Bucky had thought of it. He’d met her at Tony’s funeral as well, and had fallen in a two-hour conversation with the woman because there was going to be no meteoroid left unturned. Not when he had the expert available for him. But he shook his head.

         “I don’t think I’d be able to stay away for that long.”

         “From what? Earth?” Y/N quirked her eyebrow up.

         “No, Earth I could live without…”

         “Then what?”

         “You.”

         It was so simple, a single word, yet it held so much weight to it. And at first, Y/N was going to say, if it was because of that promise he’d made to her dad, Bucky had nothing to worry about, but she didn’t. Because in his eyes she could see - that wasn’t it. She could see that when he said ‘you’, he meant that he wouldn’t be able to live a day without her. That any moment she wasn't in his life, was dull and bleak.

         Y/N cleared her throat, put down her chopsticks and took Bucky’s hand in hers, slowly intertwining their fingers. “Well… if you do uh decide to visit space someday… I wouldn’t mind going with…”

         Bucky swore when she looked at him, all the stars dimmed in shame from just how much her eyes sparkled.

         He had asked her out that evening. With half-said words and pieces of rice still stuck in his throat, he had mumbled out something along the lines of ‘would you ever consider going on a date with me’, and Y/N had shaken her head and returned to her food with an ‘I already thought this was a date’.

         Still to this day both of them continued to argue when did their relationship truly start – the evening in the basement when they’d confessed their feelings, or the following week when he’d taken her to a quaint little Italian place in Brooklyn; where they’d sat in a corner booth and shared two pizzas.

         Bucky said it was the latter. Because it was also the evening when they’d first kissed. She had been the one to initiate it. They were on their way to the Avenger’s tower which had been rebuilt in the memory of her father and to house the new generation of Earth’s mightiest heroes as well. It was also where Bucky resided.

         “Do you not want to kiss me?” she asked, chuckling before he could even say a thing. He could hear there was no hurt in her tone, and his breathing evened out a bit, knowing she wasn’t offended. “’ Cause I see you keep glancing at my lips, and I’m just waiting for you to make a move, but any time I try to look at you, you look away.”

         Bucky gave her an apologetic smile and squeezed the hand he was holding in his won. “I don’t think it’s too shocking if I say I haven’t kissed anyone since the forties, so ‘m sorry that I’m a bit nervous.”

         “Hey, it’s okay.” Y/N brought one of her hands to his cheeks, and he practically melted. “There’s nothing wrong with being nervous. I’m nervous too. You just gotta talk to me, ‘cause your eyes are saying one thing, but you’re doing another. I just wanna know if we’re both on the same page… I don’t mind waiting.”

         Bucky’s eyes softened at her words. “Really?”

         “Of course,” she scoffed as if him doubting that, was the most offensive thing in this world to her. “I want this to be enjoyable for both of us, and putting you in a situation you don’t wanna be in, is not how to achieve that.”

         With every passing second, Bucky’s heart beat harder and harder, and despite him giggling, he was terrified to the core. “So, if I said I wanted to kiss you now?”

         Y/N shrugged as if she wasn’t about to leap out of her skin from the anticipation. “I’d say I’d be more than up for it. I did say I don’t mind waiting, not that I want to.”

         Bucky’s core was shaking as he leaned in. He rested his forehead against hers; her beanie scratched against his skin, but he didn’t mind it much. He didn’t even mind the first flakes of snow that covered the November swept Central Park. 

         “You gonna kiss me, Buck, or just stare into my eyes?” Y/N teased him, her breath fanning over his face in a white cloud. It smelled of the sweet red wine both of them had drunk. He couldn't wait to taste it on her lips. Never in his life did he think he'd be jealous of a wine glass, but that night he had been.

         “I could stare into your eyes forever.”

         She snorted. “You’re such a sap… but I kinda like it.”

         Bucky smiled as wide as his cheeks would allow before slipping one of his hands to rest on Y/N’s waist and the other cupped her autumn-air touched cheek. 

         The kiss was more than he ever could have hoped for. It was sweet and short, but it filled Bucky’s soul to the brim. He didn’t know if he believed in souls or God, not after what had happened to him, but what he did believe in is that there was a person out there that was meant just for him.          

 Not a soulmate that would complete him like a missing puzzle piece, but someone that made him strive to be a better person, someone that would bring only the good out in him and the bad parts… they’d accept and help him find a way to shape them into something worth living for. With that one kiss, Bucky was one hundred percent sure he’d found her.

         Y/N pulled back, eyes still closed and a wide smile on her face, and Bucky watched her face intently. “Not bad,” she muttered, “for someone who hasn’t kissed anyone in like eighty years. But you could use some practice.”

         Bucky’s whole chest exploded with warmth. “Yeah. And are you offering to be the teacher?”

         She opened her Y/E/C eyes and gazed at him; lips pulled in a teasing smirk. “For a good price.”

         “And that would be?”

         “Another kiss,” her mouth skimmed over his. This time Bucky was the one to press his lips against hers first.

         Now any time he wanted affection he’d gently come to Y/N, though never if she’d slipped into work, and he’d lean down to her ear and whisper his wish. He wanted to be respectful of her space and boundaries much like she was of his. Sometimes he still whisked his hand away from her if she touched him a bit too quickly and unexpectedly. Once he’d realize what had happened, he’d inch his fingers along Y/N’s forearm and intertwine them.

         ‘Sorry,’ he’d say with a squeeze of his hand.

         ‘Me too,’ she’d squeeze right back with an apologetic smile. 

         So, he always had to make sure she wanted his affection.

         “Bucky, you never have to ask if you can kiss me or hug me,” she responded one late evening as she pecked his lips and rested her back against his chest. Brooklyn Nine-Nine played in the background. “I always want to kiss you and hug you.”

         And although he tried to settle it in his mind, that he needn’t question whether she wanted him, because for some weird (in his mind) reason Y/N wanted him in every way, there was a thing he wanted a solid confirmation on.

         “Can we sleep together?” his question came out as an uncertain whisper, voice trembling.

         Y/N chuckled as Jake Peralta smashed through the window from a zipline and busted the bad guys. “Of course,” she said. “I kinda expected you to stay over. It’s snowing like crazy right now.” And it was. Behind the window of her house, an actual blizzard raged on. Pep and Morgan were out of town for that weekend visiting her side of parents. Y/N had insisted they stay over there and had actually threatened Happy if he tried to even sit in a car. She wasn’t going to let anyone get hurt. Besides, Christmas was in two days. They’d all make it back just in time.

         “I wasn’t gonna let you drive in this kind of weather,” Y/N said, trying to reassure Bucky that he was more than welcome to snuggle up with her and spend the night. But it wasn’t what he was asking.

         “No, I meant can we… sleep together?”

         Instantly, her head went to the side only to see him looking at his lap. Her heart stuttered in her chest, not just at the thought that Bucky wanted her in that kind of a way, but because he asked. Because he wanted to know if she was ready to be intimate with him to the highest degree. 

         “Bucky,” she lifted his face so their eyes could meet. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

         There was no judgement of having asked that question, there was no mockery of him being shy and scared to bring it up. All he could see was Y/N making sure he was certain in what he asked. He fell a little more in love with her. 

         “Yeah,” he breathed out. “I think – I know, I’m ready. I wanna be with you… in every possible way… do you want to?”

         She nodded her head maybe a bit too eagerly, but there was no shame in it. “As long as you’re completely sure.”

         Bucky knew there was nothing in this world he was more certain of. 

Y/N switched off the TV and rose from the couch, her hand extended for him to grab. Both of them were filled with nerves and excitement as she led him through the house, up the stairs and to her room. Fairy lights had been left on just so she wouldn’t have to walk inside a pitch-black room, but unintentionally it created the perfect mood – gentle, kind and trusting.

         “Guide me, Bucky,” she kissed right below his ear and wove her hands around his middle. “I want you to tell me and show me what you like.”

         His touches started out trembling, slow and unsure, but soon enough, as he moved Y/N’s hands and allowed himself to show her mouth where he liked to be caressed the most, they became greedy and demanding.

         They demanded to feel more of her, so he removed the shirt that had been covering her body, they were hungry to roam over her skin, so both flesh and metal slipped across every curve and dip in their way, eagerly memorizing how she shuddered and responded, how she became pliable in his fingers.

         He didn’t know that it was Stark who years ago had sent over to Wakanda his nanotech patent, so Shuri could one day implement it in his arm. He didn’t know Y/N had been doing the final tweaks before Bucky was called over to the other country on the same day he’d made the promise to keep her safe. He didn’t know it was because of Tony he was able to touch and feel and relish in being touch and felt. But the day he found out about it, he swore all over again to never let go of his word.

         Their first time had been soft and tender and filled with reassurances and breathless love confessions. When Y/N had touched the shoulder where his metal arm connected to real flesh, Bucky almost started crying. Her nails were digging into the scarred flesh much like his own had at one point, but they weren't trying to pry that horrid silver appendage that he once owned away. HYDRA had had to restrain him in the chair and sedate him to repair the damage he’d done to their newest weapon. Bucky had practically ripped his arm off anew that time leaving his skin in bloody scraps. But Y/N was holding onto him like if she didn’t, she’d be the one to fall apart, that somehow someone would rip her away from him, and there was no way she would allow that to happen. She bit down on the joint as she came soothing the sting with her tongue.

         That night (or rather that morning), after they’d tried every possible position before Y/N had exhausted all of her energy, Bucky watched her sleep on his chest, her right palm cradling his left shoulder. She let out a small snore and furrowed her eyebrows. Whatever she was dreaming about, she was not agreeing with it. Bucky huffed and pushed away a sweaty strand of hair from her forehead. Instantly the lines between her brows disappeared.

         “I’m in love with you,” he whispered as the Sun slowly rose. He thought his only witness had been the quiet of her room, but the small ‘I love you too’ proved him wrong.

         Bucky had never been the white-picket-fence kind of a guy, not even before the war. And he wasn’t one either now. But he did want a family, he did want to belong somewhere... with someone. And he’d found that with Y/N.

         What had started off as a promise to her father, had morphed into a vow to himself. Bucky looked over to his left where Y/N had her head resting on a white cloud of a pillow, Y/H/C hair sprawled all across it.

         Three years later to the day, with Christmas fast approaching, they found themselves in the exact same position as they had been in her house, this time, in the Avenger’s tower. Their frames were covered by the fluffiest and warmest duvet ever known to humanity. Bucky wouldn't allow anything less. ‘I’ll keep her safe,’ his thoughts rang, ‘because I love her’.

         It was as if she could feel him thinking. Two Y/E/C eyes blearily blinked open, trying to focus in on Bucky. “You okay?” she whispered sighing and rolling closer to snuggle deeper into his chest. She shivered when his metal hand trailed down her naked spine. “Nightmares?”

         “No.”

         “Then why are you up at,” she leaned over to his side where the clock sat, “5:30 in the morning?”

         “Jus’… thinking.”

         She raised her eyebrow but didn’t pry. Bucky would tell her in his own time. “You should get some sleep,” Y/N rested back into his side. “You won’t be able to get any until he turns eighteen.”

         Bucky let out a soft laugh and allowed a warm hand to weave away from her waist to her stomach. “I think you’re the one that needs sleep the most.”

         Instantly Y/N winced and glanced down. “Yeah, well I woke up because you woke up, and now I’m up because someone likes to fucking assault my bladder. I swear he already loves you more than me.”

         Bucky chuckled and slipped under the covers. If he wasn’t dead tired, he would’ve taken Y/N for another round, especially as he gazed over her bare chest. But he didn’t. Instead, he pressed a kiss to her round belly and addressed the person growing inside there. “Hey, Anthony, please let your mom sleep. You know she needs it. It’s how she’s keeping you safe and strong.”

         “You do too,” Y/N whispered holding Bucky’s cheek in her palm once he emerged. “We’re both in this together, you know.”

         If this had been the first time, she’d ever said those words, he was sure he would’ve cried. He had cried. Nobody in his life had trusted him to the degree Y/N did. Not to love or keep or hold or touch.

         “You already do, Bucky,” she had wiped his tears away the day she told him he was going to be a father. “Every day you keep Pep and Maguna safe. You keep me safe… you’ve kept your promise… you’ve always taken care of us… what makes you think this will be different?” a small laugh escaped her when he finally smiled. “We’re in this together. You and me. We’ll figure it out. You'll keep them safe too.”

         They still hadn’t grasped everything, not fully at least; every day was filled with new challenges and obstacles, but if there was one thing Bucky always had, it was Y/N’s touch to guide him.

         With a hand on her huge stomach and a kick from their boy against Bucky’s palm, he fell asleep cocooned in the warmth of their bed with the soft winter layer protecting New York.

         Y/N laid her palm over his. Yeah, Bucky loved touch.

         P.S. Thirteen-years-later Bucky could finally understand why teenagers were scary.

Tags (crossed out wouldn't take): 

Bucky tag list: @thunderous-flower @who-cares-rn​ @projectxhappiness​ @callmebucky-doll​ @coal000​ @killuaenthusiast @courtneychicken​ @sophiealiice​ @raquelbc2003​ @watch-out-for-thorns​ @potentially-kinetic​ @thatonegirljessy99​ @proxinge @bbkenna @buckysclub​ @ulired @fangirlofeverythingbasically @mrsalh32611​ @horrorx570ximagines​ @the-nargles-made-me-do-it​ @pooslie​ @itsisabelanotisabella @httpmcrvel​ @purplebananatragedy​ @pxrrishly​ @parker-barnes-af​ @skulliebythesea​ @california-grown​ @stevehesaidabadlanguageword​ @belongsto-prachi​ @hello-i-am-insane

Marvel tags: @nerissa98​ @happyseagrill​ @asguardiansoftheavengers​ @crazybutconfidentaf​ @wishingforahome​ @pizzarollpatrol​ @desir-ae​

Forever tags: @lumelgy​ @palaiasaurus64​ @supernaturalbaesduh​ @breezy1415​ @crazy--me​ @thatawkwardlittlefangirl​ @sea040561​ @staryeyedgirl​ @deathbyarabbit​ @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91​ @dalilx​ @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki​ @maladaptive-ninja-returns​ @averyrogers83​ @in-the-end-im-still-trash​ @gallifreyansass​ @dewy-biitch​ @avxgers​ @unlikelygalaxygiver​ @sweet-ladyy​ @magicwithaknife​ @ollyoxenfrees​ @bnhvrdy​ @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines​ @thatkindofgurl​ @sj-thefan​ @teenwolflover28

A/N: woo, am I on a roll! All this Seb content is giving me life! I might have something for Star Wars with Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo that I’m thinking of writing since I’ve seen the movie now :)

P.S. what did ya think?

P.S.S. my tags are always open :)

[anxiouslyfred]

In The Nightmare Together

Summary: Virgil shares his dreams with his soulmate and while he never talks about them they do, and happen to be one of his friends. There’s just a tiny bit of avoidance where Virgil does not want to mention this to them at all.

TW: Murder description, Nightmares

/\/\

Virgil had always been scared by the dreams he had. Whether they were actual nightmares that came from his own mind or the bizarre creations his soulmate dreamt of, they were unsettling and left him with hundreds of things to worry about.

He'd stopped talking about his dreams fairly young, and had seen the schools counsellor through out his time there, just trying to avoid being terrified of any situation the dreams made seem plausible happening. Once, after finishing schooling and he was with a professional therapist, they'd tried researching something from a dream together to see if it helped and found it only made things worse.

Instead they'd now focus on distinguishing the dreams that came from himself and the ones from his soulmate. It was helping actually, because Dr Picani could help Virgil work through the fears he had coming up in dreams to reduce how frightening they were, while making points about the emotional tones of his soulmates dreams, and how that suggested they perceived the things that happened in their dreams.

The one thing Picani couldn't help with beyond suggesting he simply mentions it when he has a chance was that Virgil knew with full certainty who his soulmate was. They'd talk about their dreams all the time around the group of friends Virgil had been pulled into by Patton, and every time Virgil knew exactly what could happen next.

He just couldn't bring himself to say something. What if his soulmate was disappointed in him, or dismissed all the fears that permeated his thoughts and his dreams? Worse than that, what if they realised he had known for ages and had never mentioned it, or spoken about his own dreams? They could think Virgil was ashamed of his, or worse that he didn't want to be their soulmate, when really all he wanted was to be able to be pulled along in the tide of his soulmates energy and confidence.

Really, Virgil was already resolute he'd just carry on being Remus's friend through the years and never mention their connection. It happened often enough that soulmates wouldn't meet that there was no real force pushing him to confess beyond societies belief everyone needed a life partner and who better than the one the universe declared for you?

The latest dream he could remember had definitely come from Remus. It had felt relaxed, and focused on things like putting the knives away as they were thrown towards them, or just how the blood splatters could have happened in the bathroom when they were next aware of being on a rooftop.

Virgil thought it was a bit tame considering the dreams they'd had when an aquarium first opened in the town, and was already curious over just how Remus would connect the scenes when telling it to their friends. It definitely seemed like one that wouldn't get identified as a dream before they began, passing it off as a ghost story just to scare Patton and Roman that little bit more. At least being aware of what happened in the stories stopped Virgil being included on the list of people Remus tried to scare.

“Oh, now my Precious Skelly is here, I can tell you all this awesome story I heard last week.” Remus declared as soon as Virgil made his way over to them in the cafe.

“Sounds ominous, did you really need everyone here to start telling it?” He quipped back, heading to the counter for a drink before he sat down.

The rest of the group hadn't paused their conversation with Remus's call beyond glancing up to wave at  Virgil so it was more likely they just hadn't felt like arguing through all the tangents and diversions the others made to try and avoid hearing his stories. There was the small possibility that Logan had been the one to suggest waiting as a delay to avoid watching Patton's reactions a second time though.

“Yeah, like once there was this guy who like really really pissed off his ex on the flats on Grimsby Drive. Literally the ex chased him through the house throwing knives at him on the day he was actually meant to be moving out. The best thing was though, the ex didn't own the knives anyway, so instead of like trying to get to an escape route this bloke was just constantly catching the knives and racing into the kitchen to put them away.” Remus began, speaking loud enough that all their friends conversations stopped, along with a few from the surrounding tables.

Roman looked like he was about to speak up, but Remus was already bouldering on after his dramatic pause. “Real neat freak, I guess. Personally, I'd be more likely to throw the knives back at someone attacking me like that, but stabbing them into a knife block while making eye contact is definitely a mood. Not that glaring down maniacs actually works. Apparently the ex caught up to him in the bathroom. The blood scatters were drips along the floor, note even smudged by someone moving through them, but the body wasn't even there. You'll never guess where they found him?” Remus was bouncing in their seat describing the scene, looking around at everyone as though expecting them to make guesses.

“If he's a proud fighter surely he emerged the victor of their spat and there was no body to be found, only the police arriving to take his attacker away.” Roman claimed.

Patton perked up at the suggestion, not so subtly looking for a way to end the story. “You know that might be one of the few things I can see police being needed for. They use like a million times too much force in most scenarios the news reports them arriving in. Good for the guy though, it's important to get help when needed.”

“That's not what happened though!” Remus groaned, flinging their arms behind them. “Come on, guess where the body was found!”

“Actually Patton, the police could still escalate that scenario beyond what's necessary. What would be best for someone attacking in such a way as this would be attempting to disarm them and calm the attacker down. Historically, the police have taken a much more violent response to these scenarios than they should, causing harm or possibly death to uninvolved parties on occasion.” Logan carried on with the discussion of police but Virgil could see Remus would snap and try to bring their focus back to the story soon.

Instead he spoke up, shaking his head. “So how did the guy get onto the roof, Remus? Come on, carry on the story and we can argue the morality of the police force later.”

Virgil wasn't sure why that sentence had everyone turning to him for a moment. It had been a question related to the story so... Remus hadn't mentioned the rooftop scene yet so he shouldn't have known about it.

“Do you know the story too, Virgil? Remus never mentioned the murder happening upon the roof of a building.” Logan asked. He'd blinked a couple times, clearly repeating the conversation in his head to double check was was said.

Before Virgil could agree and move conversation on his wrist was being grabbed as he got dragged through the doors to the cafe. “ SOULMATE TIME BITCHES! YOU GUYS CAN HEAR THE REST OF MY DREAM LATER!” Remus screamed over their shoulder, even bouncier than before, and almost pulling Virgil straight into a lamppost.

Virgil's mind was spinning: Was Remus going to get some revenge for not mentioning it earlier? Demand details of the story and ignore that it was clearly a shared dream?

“So where do you want to have our first date? Golf course? Break into the mansions on the edge of town? Abandoned warehouse? Haunted house at the end of your road?” Remus began rattling off ideas before pausing when they glanced over to Virgil. “Nope, turn those thoughts off. I get it, bringing up dreams when you literally never speak about yours would be awkward and we've had like zero time alone in all the years we've been friends. You didn't want all eyes on you, and that wouldn't get help from your anxiety either. It's all good. Now come on, Nightmare Fuel, we've got a date to go on and I might steam roll everyone into hearing about our dreams but I'm not rolling over this decision!”

“But, we've known each other for ages and I never said. You aren't angry?” He had to ask, blinking, but letting his feet start taking them towards his home.

Remus shook their head, almost as wildly as a dog would after getting out of a river. “Course not. Date Where Now?”

“The haunted house? Do you actually know how to get in there?” Virgil decided, letting the conversation swap subjects as they walked away.

[straylightdream]

part three: please don’t leave me

featuring: Mob Boss Kim Junmyeon x reader, Bodyguard Oh Sehun x reader

Cold, wicked and ruthless we’re all words that people used to describe Junmyeon, but when it came to her he made an oath to protect her. Sehun was assigned to watch over her, he never expected for her to break down his walls.

warnings: angst, mentions of violence, injuries, death, blood, gun shot wounds, ptsd, future chapters will contain sexual content

word count: 9.4k another long one

AN: Sorry this took literally forever. Let me know what your thoughts are.

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series masterlist

It’s been a month since your first trip outside and since then you’ve been able to conquer going outside with only Sehun by your side. Things at the compound are starting to feel very different but in a good way. You see your therapist twice a week now. She sits in the library in the chair by the door while you sit on the overpriced leather couch. You talk about a range of things whether it’s about Sung or the boys you live with. She tends to ask you questions often about Sehun and Junmyeon. She seems to be very interested in your relationship with the two men who take care of you.

Sitting on the leather couch under the window you’re sitting there with your legs crossed in and held close to your body. The beautiful woman is scanning through her notes as you wait for her final questions.

“How have your trips outside been going?” she asks.

“I’m getting better. Sehun and I take solo trips out there at least once a day together,” a smile beams on your face. You’re still Immensely proud of yourself that you’re able to walk outside with just Sehun.

“That’s really good.”

She wraps up your session and Kyungsoo greets both of you at the door. He places his hand on her back and leads her out of the compound. Since starting your therapy sessions Kyungsoo has gotten a new job as your therapist’s driver. According to Jongdae, Kyungsoo likes time alone so he doesn’t mind driving her if he gets a few minutes alone in the car after dropping her off.

Sehun is standing in the hall outside of the library. He’s in a sweater with the sleeves pushed up. He’s wearing a small smile as he walks closer to you.

“How did it go?” He asks the same question he asks you every time you finish up therapy.

“It went good. Did you maybe want to get some lunch?” It’s a rare moment when you’re actually asking him to eat. Normally he’s the one asking you to eat.

“Yeah let’s have some lunch. Maybe we can convince Yixing to help cook something.”

Walking into the kitchen you luckily already find Yixing looking through the fridge. It doesn’t take much convincing to ask for him to make you and Sehun something for lunch.

Leaning against the marble island in the middle of the kitchen you can’t help but smile as you eat the delicious meal Yixing prepared for you. It’s just you and Sehun standing there eating.  He’s wearing a smile as he watches you slurp up your noodles.

“You seem really happy today,” he says speaking up. His warm eyes are locked on you as he examines you. You’ve had a really good day and you feel confident in yourself and he must notice.

“I feel really good today.”

He knits his eyebrows together as if he’s processing what he should say to you. He swallows loudly, “it makes me happy to see you like this.”

You can’t help but smile at his sweet comment, “you’re part of the reason I’m able to be happy again.”

“It might not mean anything but being around you makes me happy too. I might not show it, but I’m happy being around you,” he’s never been this open around you. Most of the time he comes off as more guarded and closed off with his emotions.

“That means a lot,” you smile.

After finishing your lunch you walk with Sehun into the foyer near the door. You find Junmyeon coming inside. The moment his eyes lock on you he smiles and lights up. He’s dressed in blue suit, he’s clearly just come back from his office.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi Junmyeon,” you stop and give him an awkward wave.

“What are you two up to?” He asks as he glances over at Sehun who is standing next to you.

“We just finished eating. I thought about maybe going to the library,” you hadn’t really thought about what you planned on doing after eating.

“How do you feel about going outside with just me?” Junmyeon asks as he walks closer to you. His statement catches you off guard and you look up at Sehun to see his emotionless look playing across his face as he swallows loudly. Your eyes flicker back to Junmyeon who is standing in front of you. “You’re allowed to say no if you only feel safe with Sehun. You won’t hurt my feeling,” his voice has zero malicious intent behind it. You can tell he means it, that his feelings won’t be hurt.

Glancing up at Sehun you look for him for approval. You know that he doesn’t have a say in what you do, but you still want to know what he’s thinking.

“You can go with him, I’ll be inside when you get back,” his voice is low as his warm eyes lock on yours. He’s speaking to you as if Junmyeon isn’t standing right by you.

“I’ll go with you,” you finally speak.

“Sehun can you grab her coat,” Junmyeon responds.

“I’ll go get it,” you say.

At a quick pace you walk through the compound alone off to your room. You left Junmyeon and Sehun alone and you can’t help but wonder what they’re talking about. Since you moved in, Junmyeon and Sehun are rarely ever alone. Walking into your room you grab your coat that’s hanging on a hook by the door. Pulling on your grey coat you glance in the full length mirror that is on the wall close to the door. You take a deep breath repeating your mantra you’ve grown all too familiar with. “You can do this,” you repeat quietly.

Walking downstairs you find Sehun and Junmyeon right where you left them, but now Chanyeol is leaning against the wall staring at his phone.

“Ready,” Junmyeon says.

Nodding you follow him as he walks out the door. The afternoon sun is shining through the clouds as the cool autumn breeze pushes your hair away from your face. Pushing your hair behind your ears pausing for a moment. Junmyeon stops and looks at you giving you a soft smile.

“You never asked if I have my gun,” you realize that this is the first time you haven’t asked him this. You can’t help but suddenly feel proud of yourself and how far you’ve come.

“I guess I didn’t.”

“That’s a good step,” he moves so he stands closer to you. “Would you like to take my arm?” It’s a simple gesture but it makes a smile tug at your lips. Silently you nod gently placing your hand on his bicep. He stares at you for a moment before he starts leading toward the rose garden.

Standing in the sea of red roses you can feel him staring at you. Looking up you give him a soft smile tilting your head to the side.

“What are you thinking about?” You can’t help but wonder what the most powerful man in the city is thinking about. He seems so lost in his own thoughts.

“I’m just thinking about how far you’ve come,” he removes your hand from his arm and moves so he’s standing in front of you. “That night when Chanyeol carried you into the compound with a gunshot wound I was worried about you. I was more worried than I should have been—,” he pauses and stares at you as if he’s trying to process what exactly he should say. “I promised your brother I would look after you no matter what, and for a while there I felt like I was really letting him down,” his words feel like a sledgehammer hitting you in the chest. He feels an immense amount of responsibility to make sure you get better. “I’m the reason you lost your brother, and I’m the reason you got shot. I’m the reason you literally couldn’t go outside for months,” his voice is shaking as if he’s losing control of his emotions. He’s always so strong willed and it’s suddenly like that slipping away.

Without even thinking you reach up reaching your hand in his cheek, “this isn’t your fault. I’m not broken because you.”

He knits his eyebrows together, “I never said you were broken.”

“Myeon, I’m going to be okay. This just takes time, just like my gunshot wound, somethings don’t heal overnight. Look how far I’ve come. I used to not be able to go outside without five men and now I’m standing here for just you,” your hand hasn’t left his cheek.

Reaching up he gently rests his hand on top of you, “this is new to me. Everything that is happening is new. It’s just been me and the circle for so long. I’ve been closed off for a very long time,” he seems so vulnerable as he’s speaking to you.

“It’s okay everything is new to me too. We’re learning everything together—“ you pause as he pulls his hand away from yours. “I’m healing more and more each day with the help of you, Sehun, and the boys,” his face drops a little at the mention of Sehun’s name.

“I’m glad you have someone like Sehun who makes you feel safe,” he steps away from your touch leaving you suddenly feeling cold.

“You also make me feel safe.”

A small smile tugs on his lips.

“I’m happy I make you feel safe.”

Walking away from you he walks towards a rose bush. You watch as he pulls his pocket knife out of his pants pocket. Ever so carefully he cuts a long stem rose like he’s done in the past. He cuts off the thorns and holds it out for.

“I’ll never get over how beautiful all these roses are,” you say taking the rose in your hand.

“There is something special about these roses,” he says looking around at the sea of blood red roses.

You spend about thirty minutes walking around the garden with Junmyeon. The whole time you’re outside you feel at ease and not worried.

Walking inside you find Sehun standing near the door waiting for you. The moment your eyes lock on him he smiles. He steps forward but stops quickly and tilts his head to the side as if he’s waiting for you to make the next move. You feel Junmyeon’s hand on your lower back for a short moment and you glance at him to see him nod at you before he walks off towards his office. You’re left standing alone with Sehun in the foyer.

“How did it go?” He asks, finally speaking.

“It was nice,” you aren’t sure how exactly you can even describe your short trip with Junmyeon.

“That’s good.”

“I’ll leave you two alone. I need to talk to Chanyeol and Minseok,” Junmyeon nods before heading up the stairs towards his office.

“Did you want to maybe watch a movie or a rerun of an older show or something?” you ask.

“I think Jongdae and Jongin are watching something if you don’t mind joining them,” he says standing in front of you.

“I’m okay joining them.”

-

A few days have passed and you're sitting in the dining room eating breakfast with Sehun, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo. The sound of Junmyeon's voice catches your attention. Looking up you see him and Minseok walking into the dining room. He sits down at his normal spot at the far end of the table. You watch as he flips through a file with his eyebrows pushed together. He looks frustrated as a heavy sigh passes his lips. Since your walk in the garden Junmyeon has been extremely busy with work. He’s missed breakfast the last few days.

Chanyeol soon enters the room with the rest of the boys. They all sit down at the table, and you suddenly feel like you aren’t supposed to be in the room. This doesn’t feel like a normal breakfast. There’s a tension throughout the room.

“YN,” Junmyeon says.

“Yeah?” you suddenly feel extremely nervous and you can’t explain why.

“I have business to take care of in a few towns over and I need the whole circle,” Junmyeon says as he puts paper down he’s been staring at. His statement catches you off guard and you suddenly feel sick. The floor feels like it’s dropped out from under you as you stare at him. “I would really like for you to come as well. If you want to stay I have other men that can stay at the compound and look after you. I can have Johnny, Jaehyun, and Yuta look after you. I would prefer you come with us though.” It’s clear he’s fully thought this out.

You blink unable to think of anything to say. Sehun’s hand gently rests on your thigh, catching your attention. You quickly turn and look over at him. You swallow loudly as your eyes quickly roam his face. Feeling completely lost.

“You’ll be okay,” he says softly, just loud enough for only you to hear. “You’ve come so far. You can do this.”

Glancing over at Junmyeon you find him watching you intently. “I promise I’ll keep you safe,” Sehun says.

“How long will we be gone?” You ask, not able to properly think of anything else to say. Your mind suddenly feels so foggy.

“Three days.”

“Okay,” you stand up quickly. You suddenly feel the need to rush off to your room. You feel so overwhelmed, you’re about to cry. You aren’t able to take a step before Sehun’s hand grabs yours. He’s standing next to you looking at you with sad eyes.

“Let’s go to your room together,” he says slowly.

“I’m sorry I have to ask you to go,” Junmyeon stands at the other end of the table. He looks sad as he stares at you. His eyes slowly travel down to yours and Sehun’s hands.

“I’ll be okay,” you aren’t sure if you’re lying or not.

Sehun’s hand is still cuffing yours as he leads you up the stairs towards your room. Walking into your room Sehun shuts the door and stops. Looking down at your hand that he’s holding you wonder if this feels weird to him. Without even thinking he pulls you closer to him he ever so gently pulls you into his chest for a hug. He’s never held you like this before and it’s a different level of comfort. “You’re brave. You can do this,” he says calmly. Closing your eyes you take in his closeness. He slowly rubs your back as he repeats, “you can do this.” It’s becoming very clear that nobody understands you quite like Sehun does. He knows exactly what he needs to do to calm you down.

He holds your for what feels like an eternity just gently rubbing your back. Pulling away from you he gives you a soft smile, “would you like some help packing?”

Your afternoon is spent sitting on your bed across from Sehun working on packing a suitcase for a trip you aren’t sure you’re ready to take.

-

You barely slept at night. Each time you closed your eyes you had visions of the night your brother was killed. Pulling the chair that normally sat in the corner of your room near your window. You pulled open your curtains you barely ever opened. With your legs pulled into your chest you watched as the sun slowly started to rise. You weren’t sure how you were supposed to sleep while you’re away. You couldn’t even sleep just anticipating leaving the house.

Someone knocks on your door catching your attention. Standing up you walk across the dark hardwood floor. Opening the door you find Sehun standing on the other side. He’s already dressed in tight slacks, and white dress shirt. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him dressed up. Since he’s started being your bodyguard he hasn’t had to get dressed up for work. He’s normally dressed in skinny jeans, and sweaters.

“Did you sleep?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Not really,” there’s no point in lying to him.

He steps into your room and shuts the door. You stand there looking at him for a long moment. He sighs before saying, “why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because there is no point in both of us being tired. I’ll try to sleep on the car ride.” You’ve convinced yourself that maybe you’ll be able to nap being in a car surrounded by Sehun and the other boys.

“Okay. Junmyeon wants to leave in a half hour. Is that okay with you?”

You nod.

He leaves you to give you time to get dressed. You decided to wear something comfortable to

travel in. You pull on a pair of leggings, an oversized sweater, and a pair of boots.

Entering the foyer you find Sehun standing around waiting with Jongdae, Yixing, and Baekhyun. You stand near Sehun with your suitcase silently watching as Kyungsoo soon joins with Jongin by his side. The last few to join are Minseok, Chanyeol and Junmyeon.

You sit in the last row of an SUV with Junmyeon and Sehun. Sehun is by your side with his knee brushing against yours. Junmyeon sits in the middle row, Minseok talking about something related to the Lee family. Chanyeol is driving your SUV, while Kyungsoo is driving the other one with Jongdae, Jongin, and Yixing. Your brain can’t seem to focus on anything that the boys are saying. Your eyes are focused on the passing trees. Sehun rested his hand on your knee catching your attention. Looking over at him you give him a small half smile.

“We have about two more hours until we’re there. Why don’t you take a nap?”

You know you should take advantage of this time and take a nap. You move your body off to the side attempting to get comfortable. “Why don’t you lean against me?”

You stare at him for a moment processing what he just said. You feel like you’ll be invading his space if you lean against him. He gives you a soft smile making you feel welcomed. Moving slowly you move so you're resting against him with your head comfortablely leaning against his shoulder. His arm is gently placed over your shoulder helping you get comfortable leaning against him.

The car ride goes by in a blur as you nap against Sehun. You wake up to the sound of Sehun’s low voice. Your eyes slowly open to see the modern looking house in front of you.

“We’re here,” Sehun has as you sit up.

Slowly you stretch your body and yawn and Junmyeon and Minseok exit the car. Slowly getting out of the car Kyungsoo is standing at the door and offers his hand.

Entering the house Sehun is close by your side holding your suitcase.

Entering the house you quickly notice the vaulted ceiling and the bright white walls. There’s a staircase by the foyer and hallway off to the right.

You follow Sehun as he leads you off to where you assume your room is located.

Walking into your room you’ll be staying in for the next few days. You feel Sehun’s presents right behind you. You want to turn around and wrap your arms around him. But you don't, you choose to simply look up at him.

“If you feel comfortable only staying in here I’ll tell Junmyeon I can’t go to the meeting.” If he refuses to go to this meeting you know Junmyeon won’t be happy about it. You know no details about this meeting, but you know it’s important if he needed the whole circle to be here for it.

“I’ll be okay,” you walk over and sit on the edge of your bed.

The afternoon is spent in your room you’re staying in. Sehun brings out his laptop and turns on netflix so you have something to do. He leaves you alone for about a half hour to have a meeting with the circle in the living room. The whole time he’s gone you can’t help but wonder what they’re talking about. You’re not sure what this meeting is about and you know it’s probably for the best you don’t actually know.

Your first meal in this new house feels strange. You’re sitting at a glass table in the dining room. Sehun is sitting next to you with Jongdae on the other side of him. Junmyeon is nowhere to be seen. Jongdae mentioned that he was busy with Minseok, and Yixing.

Kyungsoo cooked everyone dinner and sat down at the edge of the table. You listen as the boys make small talk. Soon Baekhyun and Jongin have joined you.

When night falls you lay in bed for what feels like hours trying to sleep.

In the middle of the night you open your door and pause for a moment waiting to know if Sehun heard you. You get about ten paces from your room when Sehun’s door opens.

“Where are you going?” Sehun asks, running his fingers through his dark hair.

“I was going to make some tea. I can’t sleep,” you sigh.

“Let me go with you.”

In the middle of the night stand in the kitchen with Sehun drinking a cup of tea. There isn’t much said between you as you drink your tea. Your mind seems to be in a million different places. His eyes stay focused on you as he seems to be studying you.

“It feels strange being away from the compound,” your hands clutch the white mug filled with tea.

“I’m sorry you had to come here. I should have told Junmyeon that I would have stayed behind with you and just had Jaehyun, Johnny, and Yuta stay at the compound,” it’s clear by his time he’s thought about this a few times.

“Even though I wish I would have stayed home, I think I needed to do this,” you know deep down inside this is just one of your steps on your long road to living a normal life again.

“I want you to know I’m always going to do whatever makes you feel the safest. Even if I have to go against Junmyeon.” You know he means it. It’s grown clear to you that you are indeed Sehun number one priority.

After drinking your tea Sehun walks you back to bed and offers to stay up with you, but know you both need to sleep so you tell him no.

After laying in bed for half an hour your eyes finally grow too heavy to stay open.

~

The meeting EXO has to attend as a whole is taking place in a warehouse outside of town. Sitting in the backseat of an SUV you are sitting in the backseat between Jongdae and Sehun. Nervously your leg bounces as you fiddle with your thumbs attempting to distract yourself. Sehun’s large hand moves so it’s resting on your knee. Your eyes snap up to his and he gives you a soft smile. Pulling up the dim lit warehouse Jongdae gets our first and offers you a hand helping you out of the back row.

The group of eight men stand near the SUV that you had arrived in with Junmyeon. They start discussing their plan, but you barely hear it. Your brain can’t seem to fully focus. You stare at the gravel below you. Slowly you drag the toe of your boot across the gravel. Sehun must notice you seem lost because he rests his hand on your lower back and gently moves you closer to him.

The group starts moving towards the warehouse. Chanyeol and Minseok are right next to Junmyeon, while you have Sehun close by you with his hand on your lower back and Jongdae is standing on the other side of you. Kyungsoo is right behind you holding up the back.

Entering the warehouse Junmyeon is quickly greeted by two large bodyguards and a man in an extremely expensive looking grey suit.

“Choi,” Junmyeon says. Just the mention of that family name sends a shiver down your spine. A sense of dread washes over you and your eyes instantly want to water.

Looking around the room you see about ten men with their hands on their guns.

The man in the expensive suit leads the group to a large room with a conference table. Junmyeon sits down at the head of the table and Sehun leads you over towards a chair that is in the corner. He stands next to you towering over you.

The man in the expensive look suit sits down on the car end of the table, and the men that had been in the other room all slowly walk in. The meeting starts and you quickly witness the mob boss known as Suho in action. The soft man you had grown to know Junmyeon wasn’t present as you listened to his powering persona Suho command control from Choi and his men.

“Choi I don’t think you’re aware of what will happen if you don’t stay out of my territory,” Junmyeon commands.

“Suho I don’t think you can make demands like that sitting in my warehouse,” the man in the suit responds with a wicked laugh.

“Choi you forget your place,” Junmyeon seethes.

“Suho I don’t think you realize I’m not afraid of you. I’ve made your little circle smaller once, I’ll do it again.” Your heart drops at Choi’s vile words. Closing your eyes you push back your tears. Him just mentioning his role he played in your brother’s death makes you feel completely sick. Taking a deep breath you try your hardest not to cry.

“Sehun,” Junmyeon eyes snap over to you and your guard.

“Yes?”

“Please take her into the other room,” Junmyeon says with his voice calm and low.

Sehun nods and reaches down taking your hand. He laces his fingers with yours thinking nothing of it as he leads you towards the door. Your eyes catch Junmyeon and he gives you a sad smile as you walk away. He had always stated he wanted to keep you away from all this and the look he gave you let you know he did indeed feel guilty for bringing you.

The door shuts and you’re left alone standing outside with Sehun. He releases your hand and moves his gun to the front of his waistband. Your heart races and your eyes go wide. Reaching forward he rests his hand on your cheek catching your attention. He’s never touched you like this before.

“Hey,” his voice snaps you out of the sea of thoughts that seem to be flooding your mind as you start to panic. “Take a deep breath for me.” You listen to his command and take a deep breath letting the air fill your lungs. “You’re okay. Nothing is going to happen in that room. Junmyeon just didn’t want you to see that side of him. He can be ruthless when he needs to.”

His hand still lingers on your skin as you take another deep breath trying your hardest to calm down.

“Okay,” you whisper.

“I should have stayed at the compound with you,” he brushes his thumb across the warm skin on your cheek.

“I’m okay,” you lie.

He shakes his head. Sehun is one of the few people you can’t lie to when it comes to your emotions. He’s spent every day with you since Junmyeon assigned him to be your bodyguard. He knows you better then you know yourself at this point.

“You don’t have to pretend right now. I know you’re scared, and that’s okay. Choi said some stuff in there with the intention of getting to Junmyeon. I need you to do me a favor and let me know what you’re feeling. Please don’t lie to me. Always be honest with me,” he swallows loudly. His eyes are locked on yours and they haven’t left yours.

“I’m scared,” you whisper. A weight feels like it’s being pulled off your chest. There’s this long moment where you stand there just staring at each other.

He removes his hand from your cheek and pauses before he pulls you into a hug. Your head rests on his chest as he rubs your back slowly comforting you.

Sehun releases you from his hold and gives you a soft smile. His hand brushes across your skin as he pushes a loose piece of hair behind your ear.

You’re alone in the main part of the warehouse for about twenty minutes before Junmyeon walks out with the rest of the boys. Junmyeon looks pissed letting you know the meeting didn’t go well.

Sehun and Jongdae lead you out in the front of the group. Pulling your coat against your body you shield yourself from the cool night air.

The sound of gunfire startled you. Standing near the SUV it took Sehun all of two seconds before he pressed the cold metal. Your chest clenches as you attempt to process where the shots are coming from. Your wide eyes scan around you watching all the men holding their guns looking for the threat. Tears roll down your cheek as Sehun is blocking you using his body as a human shield. You shake in fear feeling the bile crawl up your throat.

Another round of gunfire rings out. This time sounding closer. Junmyeon rushes towards you being blocked by Chanyeol.

Your mind is completely flooded, unable to process everything going on around you. The echoing sounds of Chanyeol shouting to open the door. Sehun is attempting to block your body while getting the back door opened.

Everything seems to be moving in slow motions.

You attempt to get into the back seat as quick as possible. The world seems as if it’s flipped upside down when another gunshot rings but this time the bullet makes contact with Junmyeon's shoulder. Blood splatters across you before another shot is fired this time into his side. He cries out in pain falling into the backseat. Baekhyun takes his shot and ends the man who shot Junmyeon. Kyungsoo and Jongdae continue to fire their guns while Yixing rushes over to the car where Junmyeon is curled up in the backseat next to you.

Staring down at Junmyeon you see the sea of blood pouring out of his shoulder and his side. His white dress shirt is turning blood red quickly. He’s losing a lot of blood quickly and you can’t help but sob looking at him. You’re mind is having imagines of the night you lost your brother. His eyes lock on yours for a moment and all you can see is pain and sadness.

Yixing has crawled into the back and is applying pressure to his boss’ side. The muffled sounds of yelling keep happening but you’re in shock and unable to process anything that is being said. All you can seem to focus on is Junmyeon lying there on the seat next to you. Jongin runs up to the car next and starts applying pressure to his shoulder.

Rubbing your face, trying to push away your tears. Looking down at your trembling hands you see blood. Your chest heaves knowing that blood isn’t yours, it belongs to Junmyeon.

Your vision is blurred as you stare at Junmyeon who is groaning in pain. His eyes squeezed shut as he whimpers. The feeling of arms being wrapped around your torso startles you. Sehun pulls you out of the car and carries you to the second car parked right next to this one. He pulls you into the back seat quickly, slamming the door.

“Junmyeon,” you scream as the car he’s in pulls away. “Junmyeon,” you scream again sobbing. You’re terrified that this could be the last time you’ll get to see the man you’ve grown to care about so deeply.

“It’s fine,” Sehun pulls you against his body. He rubs your back as you sob in his chest. Your whole body shakes as he holds your tight.

“He’s dead. He’s dead,” you scream over and over sobbing into Sehun.

“He’s fine,” his lips are pressed to the top of your hair as he rubs your back. “He was breathing.”

The tears keep coming and your chest hurts. Your worst nightmare just came true. After losing your brother you were terrified of dying, but watching another person you care about in front of you die. That is a fate worse than death. You weren’t prepared to lose another person you cared about. You’ve already lost your family. You can’t lose the man who gave you another family. You can’t take anymore heartbreak.

You sob so hard against Sehun's chest you feel his shirt below you is now wet with your tears. Your fingers are clutching on to him for dear life. The only thing keeping you from losing it is Sehun’s touch. He’s keeping you grounded as your mind thinks the very worst.

“Where are they going?” You cry into Sehun's chest.

“We know a surgeon with a private office who will operate with Yixing.” You have a million questions but you can’t ask them. You just want to know he’s okay.

Arriving at the safe house they pull the car around to the back. Someone opens the door and pulls you away from Sehun's warm body. Opening your tear filled eyes you see Kyungsoo's blurred face. He holds you just long enough before he hands you off to Sehun. He carried you bridal style into the back of the house. Looking over his shoulder you see Jongdae walking behind him. You realize right then that it’s only Sehun, Kyungsoo, and Jongdae with you. Your chest clenches just thinking about Junmyeon.

Sehun doesn’t say anything as he carries you off to your bedroom you had been staying in. He places you on the full-size bed and pushes your hair out of your face. Dropping down to his knees he stares at you for a long moment. His eyes are filled with pain and sorrow. You sniffle trying your hardest to stop the tears that keep coming.

“Give me one minute,” his voice is low as he leans in close to you. You don’t say anything as you watch him walk off into the bathroom.

Pulling your knees into your chest you wrap your arms around your legs. Your head rests on top of your knees. The tears just continue to fall as your mind continues to think the worst. Visions of Junmyeon blood play on repeat in your mind.

Sehun’s warm hand brings you from your dark thoughts. Looking up at him with blurry eyes he gives you a sad smile. He reaches down picking you up again. Walking into the bathroom you see he’s drawn a bath. He sits you down on the toilet across the bathtub.

“Please don’t leave me alone,” you say barely audible. You can’t imagine being alone right now. The only reason you’re even slightly able to hold yourself together right now is because of Sehun.

“I don’t plan on leaving you alone tonight,” he drops down to his knees in front of you. He rests his hand on your knee and stares at you for a long moment. He takes your foot in his hand gently and works on removing your boots one at a time. He sits them aside before standing up.

“Can you stand up for me?”

Silently you nod standing up with your legs shaking. “We need to get this blood off you,” his voice is so gentle. He slowly pulls your jacket off. He touches you so gently almost as if he’s afraid you’ll shatter into a million pieces. He places the jacket on the floor on top of your boots.

“Can I take this off?” He said taking the fabric of your dress in his hands. You nod your head not caring what he removed. You weren’t sure if he planned on having you strip completely naked in front of him, but it didn’t matter. You were numb to everything and you didn’t care.

He pulls your dress over your head and sets it in the pile of your clothes. You stand in front of him in nothing but your bra and underwear. If this was a different situation you might feel embarrassed by your pink floral panties and that clashes with your yellow polka dot bra. He picks you up as if you weigh nothing and sets you in the warm water.

The tears have finally stopped falling as you sit there in the warm bath. The steam filled water engulfs your body easing your tense muscles. You stare at the warm water that has started to change to a shade of pink. Your stomach clenches thinking back to Junmyeon, you can’t seem to focus on anything other than him. Sehun sits on his knees next to the tub. He holds a washcloth and dips it into the water. Ever so slowly he’s working on washing away all the blood from your face and neck. Your eyes stay locked on the water. The room is completely silent other than the sounds of water and you sniffling back tears. Nothing feels real, this whole night feels like nothing more than a nightmare.

Closing your eyes all you saw was Junmyeon laying next to you bleeding out. You pull your knees into your chest and start to sob again. You can’t stop crying no matter how hard you try. The aching feeling in your chest won’t go away. Your body shakes as you cry. Your head is pounding from your constant crying.

Sehun has stopped washing you, and after a long moment you hear him stand up but you can’t look over at him. You know he’s staring at you, but you can’t handle seeing his sad eyes as he’s watching you shatter into a million pieces. You hear what sounds like clothes being moved around. Slowly glancing over at him you find him standing next to the bathtub in a pair of boxer briefs. In any other situation you might take a moment to admire his beautiful body. Without saying a word he steps into the tub behind you still in his underwear. He pulls your body against his chest and kisses the top of your head gently.

“Is he dead?” You whisper finally speaking.

“I don’t think so,” he sounds so unsure. You aren’t sure how he’s holding it together. His boss just took two bullets in front of him.

There’s something so intimate about him holding you in the bath, but the situation doesn’t feel sexual at all. You’ve never needed anyone like you need Sehun right now. He’s holding you letting you know that it’s okay. He holds you close as you whimper into his chest. It feels like an eternity is passing as he rubs your arms and whispers it’s okay over and over like a mantra. You’ve never felt as safe as you do in his arms. His soothing touch calms you down. You aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to live another day without his warm touch. Having Sehun around is like air in your lungs, you need him. You can’t function without him anymore. Based on the way he’s holding your and whispering calming words, he’s aware of that. You aren’t sure how you’ve grown so dependent on him, and it’s probably not healthy but you can’t help it.

You stay in the bath until the warm water starts to turn cold. You’ve stopped crying, and you think it’s because you don’t have any tears left in your body. Your heart aches everytime you think of Junmyeon.

He helps you out of the bath and wraps a towel around your body. He works on helping you dry off before taking your hand and leading you into the bedroom.

He tells you he needs to leave for five minutes to change and to make a call.

“I’ll be back quickly. Jongdae will be outside your door.”

You take the few minutes you have alone to get changed and to crawl into bed. It’s not long before there’s a soft knock on your door before Sehun walks back in. He comes back dressed in nothing more than pajama pants.

“I just talk to Minseok. Junmyeon is stable,” his words feel like a wave of instant relief. He sets his gun on the night stand and stares at you completely void of emotion.

“He’ll be fine. They got the bullet out of his shoulder and stitched him up,” he moves so he’s sitting on the edge of your bed.

“Thank you for letting me know.”

He lets out a heavy sigh and pushes his fingers through his hair. He looks broken as he stares at the ground. You felt guilty that he wasn’t able to focus on helping Junmyeon, that he had to make sure you’re okay.

“I thought I might lose you tonight,” his voice is low.

You knit your eyes brow attempting to process what he’s saying. After Junmyeon was shot all your fears about being killed left your mind. You didn’t even think about the fact the boys were worried you’d get hurt.

“I’m okay,” you reach out resting your hand on his shoulder. You can’t help but wonder if your touch makes him feel warm like his does to you.

“Junmyeon is going to be worried about you when he wakes up.”

“I wasn’t afraid of dying tonight. I’m more afraid of one of you dying,” you admit. He looks over at you with his eyes filled with sadness.

“We’re not good people. We’ve done bad things, our lives don’t mean anything. You’ve lived an innocent life and you deserve more than to keep living.”

Your throat feels tight as you stare at him. You don’t even know how to respond to his statement. Your chest aches at the fact he doesn’t value his own life because of his choices.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” reaching forward as you take his hand.

“You don’t have to be,” he squeezes your hand.

“I don’t think you should be alone either.” It’s clear he was trying to act strong, but you can see the cracks forming. “Can you stay in here please?”

He nods silently.

“Please lay down with me,” your voice is soft. You’re trying to sound confident, but this whole situation between the two of you is such unknown territory. Tonight everything feels like it’s changing as the thread that seems to be holding everything together is being pulled away.

He paused and audibly swallowed  before standing up. Pulling back the covers he crawls into bed and lays on his side so he’s facing you. You lay there for the longest time just silently watching each other. Slowly you reach out resting your hand on his cheek. You aren’t sure why you do it, but you almost want to touch him to make sure he’s real. His warm skin is soft under your fingertips. You drag your index finger down his sharp jaw. His eyes stay locked on you as he’s watching your movements.

“I need you,” he whispers barely audibly.

He’s never said he’s needed you before. The whole time he’s been watching over you he’s never appeared vulnerable, in the slightest.

“I’m not going anywhere,” your hand is still on his cheek.

Without saying another word he pulls your body close to his. His arms are wrapped around your body as you’re pressed close to his body. You’re wrapped in his warmth.

“Is this okay?”

He doesn’t seem to realize you need him just as badly as he needs you, “yes.”

He holds you close to him until your eyes have grown too heavy.

Even wrapped in Sehun’s strong arms you don’t find peace as you sleep. Another nightmare leaves you screaming in your dreams. Your nightmares that used to be filled with the vision of the night you lost your brother are now filled with Junmyeon blood stained body laying next to you.

Your tears must have woken Sehun up. You’re woken up to Sehun's soothing voice repeating your name as he rubs your back slowly.

Pulling away from him your chest is rising and falling quickly as your shaky hand reaches up to push away your tears. He reaches forward resting his hand on your cheek and slowly dragging his thumb across your tear stained cheek.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” he’s trying his hardest to calm down.

Closing your eyes you attempt to stop the tears that keep falling. Without saying another word he leans forward and rests his forehead against yours. He says, “I’m here. It’s just a nightmare.”

There is this feeling of something pulling you towards Sehun as he holds you close. Opening your eyes you pull away and look at him with glossy eyes. His hand reaches up and gently brushes away your tears. Your mind stops fully functioning as you lean forward and press your lips to your protectors for a desperate kiss. Part of you is expecting him to pull away from you. You’re caught off guard when his hand stays on your cheek as your lips move together.

Pulling away from him you look at him almost as if to remind yourself this is real, “please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t leave, I’ll be by your side as long as you need me,” he reaches up resting his hand on your cheek.

You didn’t get much sleep the rest of the night. Sehun held you until the sun rose. The warm sunlight gently peaking through the blinds. You laid there in silence for a while before you took the time to ask your protector questions about his life. You learned about his single mother who has done everything for him. You learned about his friendship with the inner circle and what led him to joining the city's most powerful mob. You learned so much about your kind protector.

You stayed in your room with Sehun all day. He only left you alone to bring food to the room. As night fell again you asked him once again to lay with you. You can’t seem to bring yourself to sleep alone in this strange home.

During this night he tries to keep his distance, but once again as a nightmare wakes you up, you find yourself in his strong grip being held close. After this nightmare you don’t share another kiss. Instead he just holds you and whispers over and over, “you’re okay.”

The following day Junmyeon comes back to the compound with the rest of the circle. You haven’t seen him since arriving but you’ve seen Chanyeol who looks like he needs a few nights of sleep.

-

A soft knock on your door catches your attention. Sehun quickly sits up and walks over to the door. Opening it you’re surprised to see Minseok standing on the other side. Sehun steps aside and Minseok steps into your room.

“YN?” He seems so timid, almost as if he’s worried about speaking too loud.

“Yes?”

“Junmyeon has asked for you to come see him.”

He’d only been home a couple hours. You didn’t think you would be able to see him for at least a day. You nod silently and crawl off the bed. Looking down you see you’re dressed in your pajamas.

“Should I change?” You tug on the bottom of your oversized shirt.

“No you’re fine,” Sehun says resting his hand on your shoulder.

You follow Minseok down the short hallway to the master bedroom where Junmyeon is. Chanyeol is standing outside still looking incredibly exhausted. Him and Minseok both look like they haven’t slept at all and both of them have circles under their eyes. Minseok opens the door and signals for you to come inside. Turning back you watch as Sehun stops at the door and softly nods his head at you. Walking into the master bedroom you look at the large bed that is pressed against the wall. Junmyeon is sitting up resting against pillows. His arm is being supported by a sling. Your eyes can’t help but lock on his exposed torso. He’s not wearing a shirt and this is the first time you’ve seen this much of his skin. Your wide eyes travel down this side where you see a bandage cover where he was shot on his side. His skin looks like a watercolor painting of purple and blue, with a mix of yellow and green.

Looking up, your eyes lock on his and he gives you a soft smile. You feel frozen in place as you stand there staring at him.

The door closes behind you letting you know Minseok left the room. You were alone with Junmyeon now. Slowly you walk towards the bed.

“You can sit if you would like,” he put his hand out that isn’t in a sling next to him.

Sitting on the edge of the bed you’re facing him, placing most of your weight on one leg. Your eyes roam Junmyeon face studying it for a long moment as you sit on his bed. It’s taking everything in you not to reach out and touch his face. The sight of him laying in bed injured reminds you how human he really is. He might be a powerful mob boss but he’s not invincible. He bleeds just like you.

“I’m okay,” he says, finally speaking up.

“I thought you died in front of me. I thought I was losing another person I deeply care about,” your eyes brim with tears just thinking back the sight of laying next to you covered in blood.

“Hey,” he reaches out resting his hand on your knee. “I didn’t die, and they weren’t able to shoot you. I knew last night when those shots were firing you were gonna be okay. I knew Sehun would take a bullet before you did.”

Shaking your head the tears start to fall, “I can’t watch someone else I care about die. I can’t have Sehun take a bullet for me.”

“He’s not going to have to, because that will never happen again,” his thumb brushes across your knee.

“You almost died in front me,” you whisper with your voice barely audible.

“I’m okay. Please stop crying my love,” he calls you a name he’s never called you before as he attempts to calm you down. Your heart flutters at his sweet name.

“I’m sorry,” reaching up to wipe away your tears.

“don’t apologize, I know last night was very scary for you. I know seeing me like that probably gave you a nightmare thinking back to the night you lost your brother.”

The mention of your brother has your head swimming. The overwhelming feeling of sadness takes over you. You aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to think of him and not feel sad. Sung-Ho had his whole life ahead of him and it was ripped away.

“Can you please sit next to me?” He lays his hand on the bed next to him.

Without even thinking you move to sit right next to him. With his good hand he reaches up resting his hand on your cheek for a long moment before his thumb brushes your tears away. Him and the rest of the guy must be tired of watching you cry. From the moment Chanyeol picked you up off the ground it felt like all you did is cry. At what point do they grow tired of wiping away your tears. Closing your eyes you try to push away these thoughts that plague your mind.

“Even when you’re sad you’re still so beautiful,” his voice is barely audible almost as if he isn’t sure if he’s speaking out loud.

Your eyes pop open and you stare at his face trying to read his emotions. As time passes the more the man in front of you seems to be letting his guard down. His tongue runs across his top lip and he takes in a slow breath. His hand still lingers on your skin.

“Sehun said you had a rough night that he did everything to help you.”

You wonder what details Sehun told Junmyeon. You can’t help but wonder if he knows about your bath you shared or the desperate kiss you shared after your nightmare. Your lips still tingle with the feeling of Sehun’s chapped lips moving against yours.

“I thought I was losing you and I started shutting down,” closing your eyes you still see Junmyeon laying on the seat next to with a blood stained shirt.

His thumb brushes across your bottom lip causing your breath to catch in your throat.

“I’m okay though,” he smiles at you.

“I didn’t know that though. I thought I was losing you and I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye,” your voice shakes as you fight back tears.

“Would you like to lay in here with me?”

Your mind is spinning as you stare at him. Things between you and Junmyeon have changed so much.

“Yes,” you don’t really process what laying with him means. You just quickly respond before moving across his soft bed. Laying down on your side you watch as Junmyeon takes a long moment to lay down on his back. With each move he lets out low groans reminding you of the pain he must be in. Laying on his back he stares at you and gives you a soft smile.

“Would you sleep in here tonight? You can say no if I make you uncomfortable,” he lacks confidence as he asks you. He seems so vulnerable as he puts himself out there. “I don’t want to do anything that would ever make you feel uncomfortable.”

“I’ll stay.”

Before losing your brother and moving in here you had never really shared a bed with another man. You weren’t a virgin by any means, but you never slept over with a man. In the last forty-eight hours you've shared a bed with both Sehun and now Junmyeon. You can’t seem to think about what any of this means. You just want to be close to Junmyeon. The thought of losing him terrifies you, and you just want to be close to him.

You lay there next to him talking about random things. It’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about his injury. You’ve moved on to talking about your childhood, and what’s your favorite movie. It’s not long before your eyes grow too heavy and fall asleep.

You dream of nothing as you lay next to him. There’s no nightmare or even a happy dream. There is nothing. The sound of rain falling outside wakes you up. Your eyes slowly flutter open.

The sight of Junmyeon asleep in front of you is soothing. He seems so at ease and peaceful. It’s the only time where he doesn’t look like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His chest slowly rises and falls with each breath. Your eyes wonder about his beautiful skin. It takes everything in you not to reach out and touch him.

The last forty-eight hours have drained you to no end and even though your eyes are so heavy you can barely hold them open you can’t bring yourself to look away from him. The twisting feeling in your stomach is a heavy reminder that you thought you lost him once, and you aren’t sure you can ever let him out of your sight again.

Your eyes travel down to his hand that is resting on the bed between you. Without even thinking, you reach out holding his hand. You know you shouldn’t do it, but you just need to touch him to be reminded he’s real. His eyes flutter slightly and a small smile plays across his lips. You hold completely still watching him, not sure if he's awake. The fluttering feeling in your chest doesn’t seem to stop as your eyes roam his body.

“Thank you,” he murmurs softly.

There’s a feeling in your chest that is a heavy reminder that the man holding your hand means more to you then you ever expected.

*

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